As usual Tom starts out in the lead. Claudia and Susan talk and catch up on things as they hadn't seen each other since last fall.
But quickly Sung and I pass everyone.
As usual Sung is in the lead by the halfway mark.
With the rain it was cold and wet at the top and nothing to see. Sung and I were on our way down when we ran into the others. We agreed to take different routes back to the bus and would meet there.
We took another trail back which made us climb back up a few hundred feet. In all we hiked just shy of eight miles and gained almost 2,500 feet. The high point was 2,522 and we started at 500 but had ups and downs.
You can't really tell in this picture but we are looking up at about a 45 degree angle. Yes it was steep. The log in the bottom is also seen from a different angle in the next two sets of pictures.
Sung and I were back more than an hour when Claudia and Susan arrived. Then the other showed up ten minutes later. I thought we did great for a spring warmup hike. Last year the group was going only twice a month but I talked a few into going every week. Then by August we were hiking twice a week. Sung and I talked about it while hiking and we want to push the group harder. There is a Tuesday group for those that can't keep up and they let it known they don't like pushy people on their hikes. So we are telling a few to either keep up or go on Tuesday.
I picked the first hike of the year, Tom picked this one and Sung will pick the next one. We rotate between a select few who picks the hikes and then nominate the next person. In this way we keep the hikes going where we want them to go. We do have a couple others that are more hard core like us but they were either out of town or out of the country.
.... well, if you gotta walk, that's a pretty place to do so .. 
