Royal Arch

Today Crystal and I went with Crystal's roommate, Bonnie to the People's Republic of Boulder, where we climbed to the Royal Arch. It was about a 3.5 mile round trip--half of it straight up. If hikes had a wind chill factor, I'd have to give this one at least a 2, making it really like a 7 mile hike, which we did (remarkably) in 1 hour each direction. One of us was older than the combined ages of both the others, and asked to stop and rest occasionally. I took my Nordic walking sticks for their first time "off road." I had only used them at the rec center classes previously. They worked great, and really helped on both the up-hill as well as the down hill portion. On the really rocky areas I had Crystal or Bonnie take a stick for me for a minute or so.

We were passed on the trail by some people who looked like Americans, but they spoke a very strange language. If we had been able to catch up with them we might have asked where they were from!

The view from the top was great, and the light breeze was refreshing. To celebrate we went to the Pearl Street Mall and had big, fat, juicy hamburgers in a side-walk cafe. I'm going to sit around and rest a while now while Ed to return from his trip to Alabama.