7/8, Friday. I took off Friday afternoon to hike Bandera's flowering slope with 2 of my ex-coworkers (L & L) whom I haven't seen for ages. We met at the waterfront condo of one of them at 12:30pm.
We started right at I-90 exit 42, followed a bootpath, gaining ~600' (~0.7 mile) to reach the road near the TH parking lot. This saves driving on the long gravel road off exit 45. I actually enjoyed this section: it feels more wild, and the path is next to a small creek, which involves 2 log bridges.
The main trail is very boring, looking more like a logging road than a trail. After about 3 miles of this, finally we reached the bottom of the flowing slope. There were already some beargrass before the junction.
The trail here seems better than before. My coworkers, who are both in their 60s, took some time. This is the first time for both of them on this slope.
As suggested by one hiker coming down, L left her red daypack on the rock by the trail, and transferred water, wallet and snack into my day pack.
We made to the ridge for a peekaboo view of the north side, and came back down in the flowers of for a long break.
Beargrass this year is amazing.
The only drawback is the many little flies.
Too cloudy today to see Mount Rainier, but it provided a cooler temperature for the hike.
