Well, I finally made it. I am sitting at the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls. It is absolutely gorgeous. The first time I saw the picture of this falls, I knew I have to come here. But still, I had to wait till the my last day in Seattle (or maybe second last, if I leave on Monday) to come here. But I am really glad I did not miss it. Its quite late – almost the end of the day. I don’t see anybody here – and it is going to be dark soon. I hope I don’t get eaten by a bear. It is kind of cold and damp up here, and the sky is cloudy – but these things make this experience even more worthwhile.
Since I plan to do this kind of travel blogging from wherever I go, I bought this really handy, small and cute bluetooth keyboard so that I don’t have to endure the pain of typing in the cell phone keypad. It is really neat to see that the letters that I type in that keyboard appear in my cell phone window. Whether you like it or not, I have to put some amout of geekiness in everything, and this is no exception. This kind of cool little things make amateur mobile bloggin quite fun.
Anyway, back to where I was. The driving: Being extremely confident in my skills in maps and direction, I did not even look up the directions to this place in the net. All I had were a AAA map of Oregon and Washington and the book 100 Hikes in Alpine Lakes (which is an extremely good book by the way). As usual, I was late in starting. I got lost and drove mostly based on a compass for half an hour before I reached Highway 2. Continuing east on Highway 2, past Monroe (a really small and cute town) you have to turn right on Mount Index road, just after crossing milepost 35 and then follow the signs to Lake Serene trailhead to reach the parking lot in the trailhead. I did not have the parkign permit and I didn’t have the time to get one, so I have parked my car without permit and I am hoping that I don’t get a ticket.

The Trail: I was planning to go all the way to Lake Serene, but I don’t have time and physically it is not possible for me to go 1000 feet more elevation. My bad knee is starting to hurt agin – I will have difficulties in going down – and it is going to be dark when I get down. Anyway, the trail is damp, slippery (it rained today) and quite rocky. If you ever plannin on coming here, wear hard soled good hiking shoes – else you feet will be uncomfortable. Elevation gain around 900 feet in 1.5 miles.Sometimes it was quite steep.
I think I am getting used to these kind of hiking. It took me 40 minutes to reach the falls, and I was out of breath – but not dying. It is so quiet, calm and serene – I am feeling wonderful. There is nobody around, and I needed a photo of myself with the falls in the background. After some careful and risky placements of the camera, I finally was able to take a couple of shots :).
What more to say, it is getting dark. I better start the return journey. I have to pick up Jennifer, my landlady, from the airport at 9:30pm today.

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