East Deck Loop

[toejam]

To celebrate the yearly reminder that I'm way older than I ever wanted to be, I signed up with a local meetup group for a brutal day hike - the east and more distant end of the Hurricane Deck. The organizer called it "El Marathon de los Muertos" because it was 26 miles, occurred on the Latin holiday, and could be a death march.

So we got an early start. Not a spring chicken among us, but we were game.

Hiking toward Hurricane Deck

We plan to do some trail maintenance here next month

Climbing to the ridge

View of the Hurricane Deck

There's a weird geological feature where sandstone marbles come out of the rock - wind, I guess?

The trail gets really brushy for a few miles on the top & back side of the Deck

Then we neared the turn-around spot deep in the wilderness and had lunch

And followed a 'manicured' trail back to the cars

Featured image for home page:

 

[Absarokanaut]

I don't know if it's my computer or not but your pics didn't come through?

 

[Nick]

I fixed your pictures @toejam. The problem was that you were inserting the page URL of your image on Google+, not the URL of the actual image. I just went to the page and right clicked then selected 'copy image URL' and replaced it with that.

 

[Absarokanaut]

Technomoronman here thanks @Nick

I haven't done miles like that in more than half a lifetime and the few times I did I just didn't take it well. Today the best I've done in a long time is 13 miles and a few k. As much as I can't fathom the challenge I of course respect the hades out of those that can. Well done.

Great lookin' group. What a great way to celebrate darkness. Heeh heeh. Also beautiful ground. It's been white and polar aside from the last few days over the last month. Last night walking to the Bar almost every corner was a little tarn to negotiate. Stunning, thanks for sharing that wonderful world.

 

[toejam]

Thanks Nick. I thought of that while watching football today.

Definitely no polar vortex in southern California. We're praying for some rain.