Madera Canyon with a little snow

How invigorating it was to visit Madera Canyon again!  I asked John to PLEASE stop and see if the there was anyone at the guard shack to tell us if the trails were in good shape and if there was any reason for not heading out.  After all, the sun was shining full bore, and the temperature was getting up to the high 60's F in the Valley.

But I could see snow up in those mountain tops!  No matter, we were excited to get on a hike,  and with Mike and Sally in tow, we set off.  Mike and Sally are our current neighbours here at Voyager and they live in Las Vegas but grew up in California.

We headed up to the trail head; Mount Baldy hike, the same one we had done in November with Ken, Ann, Brian and Bev.  The first few hundred feet had us huffing and puffing but then it evened out.  As we got closer to the top we came across a few icy spots.  We could see snow in the trees in the distance but I was still surprised to see snow in our path.  

Sally is a woman after my own heart.  We both had to do a strange kind of crab walk to maneuver our way across some of the icy sections.  She is not a "luger" but has had her own traumatic  issues with which I could totally relate!

We made it to the top, had a picnic and were glad that for the most part our trek down was on the sunny side.  Only one icy section had us stymied.  I could not do it on my feet and sat down only to find scat half way down.  YUK!  I crawled around it and then had to tell Sally.  Mike, being the hero that he is, flung the scat down the cliff to make way for Sally.  Doing a similar "butt crab crawl" to mine, she made it to safe ground.

This hike took us over 5 hours but that included stopping for lunch and also to smell the ..... hmmmm....snow and cacti!  A great day!