A Break in the Weather

Winter took a vacation this weekend, and Randy and I got out to enjoy some fresh air. We hiked around Magneson Park, which was once a rich guy's wooded playground. Now it's a gem of a state park.


See the waterfall below the bridge? That is the run off over the top of a man-made, cement damn. The rich guy had the damn carved to look like the limestone walls in the canyon.


The damn creates a small lake. A great trail snakes along the canyon below, and a second trail circles the top of the canyon. We hiked a good part of both trails. Very refreshing after spending the last two months indoors.

While we were hiking, everytime we came to an icy spot on the trail, we began talking about a movie we watched earlier in the week. The movie was Touching the Void. The movie is about two mountain climbers who run into trouble while tackling a mountain that has never been climbed before in a remote region of Peru. One hiker breaks his leg at 20,000 feet. While trying to make his way down the mountain with a broken leg, he falls 100 feet off a cliff into a deep cravass. The other hiker assumes his friend has plunged to his death.

Amazingly, the guy with the broken leg manages to climb out of the cravass, only to realize he is alone, miles from his basecamp, and still badly injured. The movie made any aches and pains I've felt while hiking seem like small change. It's a great movie--though very intense--and it convinced me I never to take up the hobby of alpine mountaineering. Luckily, Randy and I finished our winter hike without any blisters, twisted ankles, or other moral wounds.

- posted by Laurie @ 4:03 PM