CABLE LINE

Last night's sunset from the summit of Tiger

Jodi and I have often hiked West Tiger 3 trail.  3 miles, 2,000 feet of elevation gain, a good workout.  You push, it pushes back.  We’ve huffed and puffed it many times.

About 6 weeks ago Justin introduced me to the Cable line trail. It’s sort of like West Tiger 3.  Starts a little further away, but ends in the same place.  The only difference?  It’s half as long.  1.5 miles.  Straight up, not a single switch back.  2,000 feet in 1.5 miles.  It’s brutal.  Every step is up.  up. up.  And it’s rocky and slippery. An absolutely miserable trail.

But every Wednesday for the last 6 weeks we’ve been hiking it after work.  Each time it hurts a little less.  The goal is to do it in one hour, and we’ve been pretty much hitting that each time.  Last night was 54 minutes, a record for me.

As we neared the top, just as I was feeling good about the pace, a fellow came up and passed me quite handily and seemingly effortlessly.

Going down cable line is good to do on occasion, but it isn’t without risk as it’s fairly steep.  Not steep enough to get seriously injured in a fall, but steep enough where a slip could lead to a minor fall (done that) or a twisted ankle.  Last night we went down the West Tiger 3 trail — with all the switch backs. A groomed trail, it’s better in the dark.

A great couple of hours of exercise topped off by a steak sandwich at the Roanoke for the final two innings of the world series.

Coming home, walking down the dock, I saw ‘Norm’, our resident great blue heron.  He politely moved aside down a finger pier and we passed about 5 feet from each other.   His beak comes up to about my chest.  For the millionth time I had that thankful feeling of living in the northwest.  The opportunity to work a full day, get out for a strenuous hike, then come home to the salt water and having to side step around a great blue heron.

Great day.