So sorry for the delay...

I am so sorry for the delay. Everyone was expecting a wonderful summary of yet another hike and unfortunately, I dropped the ball and now it is mid-July and I have yet to blog on our pre-Baker hike and our Baker hike that was scheduled for the following weekend. If I were to find an excuse to hide behind, perhaps I would say that I have been hiding behind a little bit of self pity and thus didn't feel like blogging. But then again, maybe I am just lazy. Allow me to explain.

Fri. June 25

We went hummingbird banding tonight at Lynn's house in South Surrey, right near the Pac Hwy border crossing. Deb and Carl along with their son Seth and two of his cousins all drove up for the evening to come and check out the banding site and see what exactly hummingbird banding entails. Around 9pm we packed up from the hummer banding and headed south. We are spending the night at Deb and Carl's and we have plans to wake up very early tomorrow morning so we can head over to Mount Baker.

Sat. June 26

Woke up early today and packed our daypacks with more gear than is necessary for a standard day hike but our plans were to hike all the way to our base camp and then play around on the glacier, practicing safety drills. You may have noticed I said "our plans were...". Unfortunately our plans for the day changed before we even made it to the trailhead. After securing my backpack in the back of the truck, I jumped down to the ground and, in the process, rolled/twisted my ankle. At first I thought I was no different from any other time I had twisted it. Expecting the pain would soon subside, I jumped in the truck with an icepack wrapped around my ankle and we headed out on the road towards Baker.

By the time we were half way to the trailhead, I was certain I would not be hiking. My ankle had started to swell and every little bump in the road caused me to see stars for a second or two.

Hoping that the day would not be a complete loss, we decided to skip the hiking section of our day and we drove up to the Mount Baker Ski Area in hopes of finding a steep snowy slope that Devin, Carl and Deb could practice some skills on. Here are a couple videos that I was able to film using Dev's spiffy camera:

Sun. June 27

This morning I sat around and iced my ankle. Devin, Deb and Carl went horseback riding (Deb and Carl have several horses). Once they got back, we had lunch and we headed home.

Thurs. July 1

Today I have the day off work since it is a Stat. My ankle is still quite swollen and I have come to accept that I will not be able to climb Baker this coming weekend. I have encouraged Devin to proceed with the hike without me though I am really quite sad that I am going to miss it.

Fri. July 2 - Sun. July 4

Dev, Deb and Carl hiked up the Heliotrope Ridge trail Friday afternoon. Saturday morning they made an attempt on the Baker summit. Though they did not summit, they did make it up the the base of the Pumice Ridge (approx. elevation of 9000 ft). Weather was varied as they hiked through a variety of snow, fog, and sun. Sunday they returned to the base and headed home.

My ankle is finally starting to feel strong enough now to start hiking again. It is no longer painful to wear my hiking boots so I hope to start hiking again in the next couple of days. Our hopes are that it will be strong enough to either attempt the Baker summit or to hike to Camp Muir on Mount Rainier on the BC Day holiday weekend (first weekend in August).