The Expert Hike

My hiking buddies and I found a new book with more hikes withing 20 miles of where we live. I chose one near a Lake where we used to take our boat. Most of the hikes are not trailheads, or even trails, so we end up bushwacking a lot. The book stated that even book authors could get lost on this week's hike. The author recommened this hike for experts. So, I set a waypoint on my GPS and off we went

We enjoyed beautiful views.

We found a siphon from the gold mining days. My Greatgrandfather mined near here used a siphon for hydraulic mining. Do think...?
When we were confused about which way to go, we ran into Sacajewa to point out the correct way.

We enjoyed good company. Max is the most interesting conversationalist of our group. He is a very well read dog and can converse on a number of subjects. Max keeps us updated on the best new authors publishing. Additionally, he knows a lot of then history of the area and tells us stories about early-day pioneers as we hike.

We followed the siphon to this canyon. When the book directed us to climb up the canyon to continue the hike, we grasped the full meaning of an "expert" hike. We decided we are not experts.

As we tried to find a way out of the canyon, we ended up down by the river. There's never a boat around when you need one. We ended up having a VERY steep climb back up to the trail. Maybe that was where the six wood ticks Max, Hermione, and Eloise had came from.

We only hiked 3.29 miles, but we were exhausted at the end of the day.