Hiking to Blue Ridge Lake on my Gotcha Day!

September 4th, last Sunday, was my Gotcha Day!!! The anniversary of the day I got got :).

So, what did we do to celebrate? Yep, we went on a long, long, long hike up and down the Green Mountain Trail to Lake Blue Ridge!

We ended up hiking a total of seven miles with over 1000 foot elevation change, up and down and up and down the mountain. This has to be a personal best for both Mum, Gracie and I; we've never hiked this far on such a steep incline. Even though we were tired, we really didn't feel too many effects of the lengthy, strenuous hike.

Our hike last week was on this same trail, but we had left too late last time to make it to the lake and only got in two miles in and two miles back. We left early on Sunday so that we would be sure to not only get as far as we wanted, but also miss the rain from TS Lee which was predicted that late afternoon.

The trail, a hiking and biking trail, is rated extreme by many; mainly because of the ascents/descents. We had experienced these on our first hike, so we were prepared.

We started on the trail and were very excited when we passed the point we had reached before. More fun to explore. At one point on the trail it ran behind and in front of some cabins that overlooked Blue Ridge Lake; so it felt like we were hiking in folks back and front yards.

Unlike last week, we actually encountered people on our hike this time, which was much more fun and comforting. We met a couple of bikers, a family of campers, a hiker and a nice lady walking her rattie.

There were a lot of downed logs on the trail, makinge it fun hopping up and down, while Mum squeezed under.

After 3.5 miles we made it to the Lake. It has been a dry Summer, so the lake was down, leaving a nice sandy beech, but also leaving a lot of mud. Gracie enjoyed getting muddy...

We waded some, but weren't all that interested, we were ready to hike on the trail again!. But Mum wanted us all to take a break before we headed back, so we indulged her..

The obligatory lake pose. Let's get going Mum, I see some bikers over there!

Wait, what was that? A bird, I know I see a bird!

Gracie's obligatory profile shot...Mum loves her profile :)

The only blooming thing we saw on the entire hike...

We made it back at about 2 PM...took a drive into town (Blue Ridge), filled up on gas and a few snacks...then enjoyed a little time in town. We were pretty tired, so we headed home for a nice Sunday afternoon nap.

That night, TS Lee started and it rained for well over 24 hours. Our power got knocked out at about Midnight Monday, and we finally got it back at about noon yesterday. Have to tell ya, Mum didn't like the power going out at all! No water, no phone, no cell, no Internet, no air conditioning, no light, no nothing.

We're just glad we got our power back pretty quickly...many in Alabama are going to be out of power for a week! Not fun!