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| Hiking | 6.40 Miles |
718 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.40 Miles | 3 Hrs 18 Mns | | 2.10 mph |
| 718 ft AEG | 15 Mns Break | 20 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | We followed one car in to First Water TH and only one vehicle was in the lot when we arrived before sunrise. We were on the trail after a few moments to 'saddle-up'. In an attempt to try and keep up with me Tracey had me pack a couple hard-cover books in my pack... like it would make any difference? 
For a change of pace we decided on a counter-clockwise route this trip. It turned out to be a great decision as the scenery had a distinctly different look, and made it much easier to catch sight of the arch along the way. Once we spotted it we headed west off the trail and after an easy climb we soon reached the arch. From inside the arch it appeared there would only be two places to see daylight through the arch, the first where we spotted it, and the other on the trail leading southwest across the slope from the saddle about half-way around the loop. We hiked out and back just far enough to verify it.
Then we continued on to the spring. The pipe was dripping about 1 drop per second. A few minutes later we heard a woman's voice, telling the story of how she met her first boyfriend in high school. She was loud enough we could hear we some distance away. As we approached we saw it was a group of senior snowbirds(?) and the man who appeared to be the leader yelled out hikers up! which shut the woman up instantly. We figured he did it to get her to stop the story because as we passed through the group we got the feeling the rest wanted some peace-and-quiet. 
Over the rest of our hike we met a few groups of two, one with two friendly (and wet) dogs. The last mile we had the trail completely to ourselves. Back at First Water TH the lot had just a dozen vehicles, but we met more on the drive back out so we were glad to be heading back home for a relaxing day. |
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