Before we left for our 2nd Memorial Day weekend hike, we were undecided as to what we were going to do: a bunch of badly needed yard work on my girlfriend's 5 acres of land, or go hiking. It was about 9:30 am and 75 degrees in Entiat, WA. We took one look at the property out the back sliding door and we both said once, "Let's go hiking." We decided to try another "moderately difficult" hike at a place called Cashmere Canyon's Trails, near Cashmere, WA. Before I tell you guys how it went, I want to make a confession of sorts to all my readers. I am about 45-50 pounds overweight because of a back injury I sustained about a year and a half ago. Since then I have not been able to do much in the way of working out, exercising, or hiking. It's been brutal. I write that not to garner anyone's sympathy but to let my readers know that first, hiking is a great way to lose weight, and second, the injury kind of affected how I perceive hiking in general. The effect that my injury had on me was that I would complain of being tired a lot more during the hikes we would go on, and I was always looking for flat hikes with no hills or climbing. It wasn't because I was injured necessarily, but more about just being out of shape in general. I completely forgot that most hikes are not only about the journey on the trail but what you see and experience when you get to the top. That's why most hikes have hills and are usually an ascent upward!
Once I remembered that you don't get a view if you don't climb the hill, my attitude changed about the difficulty of "moderate" hikes as defined by the folks at All Trails. Cashmere Canyon did not disappoint. The first step you take on this trail is up, so about halfway to the summit I was hurting and started complaining. My complaining has gotten so bad that my girlfriend and I have a running joke about when I'm going to start complaining on each hike. Because this is an absolute affront to my fragile male ego, I try really hard now not to complain. We laugh about it because she knows me so well, sometimes she will just blurt out, "Go ahead" and I will jokingly blurt out as many expletives and complaints as possible for about 15 seconds.
We both laugh out loud and ironically that takes my mind off of how tired I am. The hike itself is mostly an uphill climb but has a few spots where it levels off almost flat. The Cashmere Canyons trail system is hiker-only, only open for day-use and subject to occasional temporary and seasonal closures. The length of the trail is a little over 4 miles in and out with scenic views on the way up because of the lack of tree coverage.
It took us almost 3 hours to complete the loop. As you can see in the background of this pic to your left, we also saw a storm coming toward us and heard thunder a few times. It was about 82 degrees so when the very light showers (more like a mist) came it actually felt really good because the mists were cool. The further up we hiked, the more vegetation we saw. The sun eventually came back out so I was glad I brought my polarized sunglasses. This was a switch-back trail and they were quite manageable for my girlfriend, but not so much for me though. About halfway up I started complaining and did the 15 seconds of swearing and complaining thing and of course, we both started laughing hard. Overall, it was as usual a great day and a very nice hike.
