Leading a Hike up to Orchard Camp

Oh, man, I didn't realize how long it had been since I blogged! I took a job in late October, and that sorta slowed everything else down. I had hoped to write a nice long essay about my year off, but I guess it just never came off.

Getting a job can put a real dent in your blogging, hiking, reading, TV watching, -- just about everything. Bummer. I'm not totally convinced I picked the right job (I had a couple on the hook), but I'll make the best of it and see how things go.

Anyway, I have been getting out for a little hiking. A couple of weeks ago I got up early to go on sombody else's provision hike, since they'd been to mine and I wanted to make sure that there were enough folks. The hike was well attended, so it was no problem.

Then, last week, I led my first hike as a official leader last week. The hike was arranged by the other leader, so I wasn't too familiar with the trail, having hiked it just once. Then I wound up in the lead.

Fortunately, the trail from Sierra Madre up to Orchard Camp is extremely well marked, and just all around easy to deal with. I wish that I had some more fascinating details to share with the hikers, but it seemed to come off okay, anyway.

We had nine hikers start out. A few of them were fairly slow, and as we'd advertised this as a leisurely hike, I felt that I had to keep the pace down. Unfortunately, I kept speeding up and leaving folks to fall off the end.

That's what a sweep is for, but it still meant that I had to stop fairly frequently to make sure that we didn't lose anybody. It wouldn't do for something terrible to happen when I was too far off the front to know.

Anyway, it was a fun hike, a beautiful warm day, and an all-around delight.