There are three parts to a successful hike: the before, during and after. The "before" was at Lloyds at 7am. A small group consisting of Joe Young, a Bobcat, Jean LeFevre, a Bluebird (Sandy Houston), a Roadrunner (Mike Baldwin), a Stag, Beatriz Loera, Hamid Hooshmand and a Thumper (Nami Brown) met for breakfast. What a bunch of animals!
Breakfast can be hard on some folks. It's a real struggle to make a decision of what to eat at 7am and eat it and laugh at the puns at the same time. Some survived the breakfast, others thought it was too tough and had to sign out early. They were Joe, Beatriz and Hamid. Jean just came for the breakfast. Hopefully, they will be in better condition next time to make it to the carpool point.
The next stop: the carpool point. We gathered as many victims as we could, nine more, which totalled fifteen happy hikers. We caravanned them to Charlton Flats losing one vehicle, but they found us again.
After the usual speech and introductions, Bobcat led us up a pathfinders route to the main road and trail. I took over at that time, staying on the trail to Mt. Vetter without any incidents. We were greeted by two talkative dogs and two "mini-dogs" (pups). After chatting with our four legged friends, we proceeded upward to the very top, just shy of the Lookout Tower. The tower was closed to the public. After a few breathless moments overlooking the view we headed down to the cars. Bobcat, Stag and I took turns leading and sweeping the dirt road down to the connecting trail. In approximately 30-40 minutes we were back to the cars.
Now the hardest part of any hike is the "after". We met back by the cars where two picnic tables were awaiting us and laid out an array of goodies: some solids and some liquid. Yummy, yummy! We worked off what we ate by throwing a couple of frisbees around. Wow! All in all we had a good time.
