It was a beautiful hike on all three trails (Bear Canyon, Fern Canyon, and Mesa)! I wore my rain gear as showers were predicted for later in the afternoon. At the start of the hike, we passed a runner coming down who told us there were two bears at the summit. Pretty exciting, although I certainly didn't want to get close to them.
Once we got on Fern Canyon trail, there was a very steep rise (mostly on a rocks) all the way up to the 8,400' summit. Each step of the way was about a 2 foot rise and required constant use of the leg and butt muscles. No problem going up. At about the 8,100' level, it started snowing--this wasn't predicted! Mark and I were ready to continue as we probably only had about another 15 minutes to go to get to the summit; but, a couple of the ladies wanted to turn around. The hike leader used caution and said we needed to turn around.
By now it's snowing harder and the trail is starting to get covered. I managed to place my left foot on some slippery rocks and jerked my knee in my attempt to not fall. I didn't fall, however the damage had already been done to my knee. It was rather painful the rest of the way down but not excruciating or anything like that.
I got home and iced it a lot. That was Friday and I'm still icing it. I canceled going on a high altitude hike tomorrow to Twin Sisters in the hopes of doing another high altitude hike to Croser Mountain this Friday. Croser (the Glen Haven trail) is starts at 7,700' and is 9,250' at the summit. It rises about 2,000' in 4 miles (shouldn't be as bad as last Friday's hike, but I don't really know since I haven't done that one yet). I heard there is a rock scramble just before you get to the summit. (That's what I'm worried about! I think I'll do fine on straight walking, it's the lifting of my knee high that concerns me.) The total hike mileage is 8.2 miles.
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