July 26 - 4th Hike - Castle Rock State Park

This post is dedicated to everyone who has donated so far, but especially to Sven, because he donated while I was writing this post, to Carlos the Dwarf, because again, his blog post was very touching, and to Brian, who is my top donator so far.

I like the word "clambering".
As in "she clambered up and down over rocky obstacles in the trail, a couple times scooting down on her butt, but not falling!"
I didn't have time to stop and take pictures on the trail very often, since I usually felt like I was going so slow on the rocks and wanted to keep moving when I got on flatter ground.

This hike was at Castle Rock State Park, a four hour hike (8:15 am to 12:15 pm). I was so thankful to have hiking poles, which really helped my balance going downhill (and eased my fear of falling forward due to weird center of gravity).


Here's my camelbak, poles, and boots, all lined up to go in the morning. I left around 6 am and got to my carpool point around 6:45. We piled into one car and for once, I was at the hike meeting point way before the 7:45 deadline, thanks to the peer pressure of the carpool deadline.













We got certificates to recognize that we recommitted to our fundraising goal this week:


This hike was about 18,000 steps (or close to 8 miles) as logged by my pedometer.
This was the first hike that I drank all of my 100 oz Camelbak water "bladder" during the hike, plus 16 oz of electrolyte drink.

Near the beginning of the hike there was a small clearing near Castle Rock where we stopped and stretched, although the pictures are kind of dark and didn't turn out that well.


Then there was a nice overlook to the Castle Rock Falls (or what would be Falls if there was water):














Here I am posing at the overlook (photo taken by Kelly, I think):















This is one of the awesome views, either from that overlook or taken while hiking along the ridge. In the first half of the hike we had the ridge drop off to our left, so just turning our heads we could usually see this view:














A little further on we came to Goat Rock. When Dave saw the below picture, he said, "You weren't supposed to climb a rock that big, right?"
Yes, we didn't climb this rock, but on the other side we saw rock climbers.




This is Reggie contemplating Goat Rock.













As Kelly, Lisa, and Tifin look on.

By the way, I really love how the leaves look in this picture. I was standing uphill a little bit, so the leaves are really in focus.








On the other side of Goat Rock, there were climbers!










This hike was quite fun, and I was very tired at the end!
But still able to rush home, take a shower, and ride with Dave up to our company picnic in Piedmont.
Thanks to Dave for his support and driving because if I had to go by myself to the picnic, after this hike, I think I would have stayed home!