June 3--Black Hills

Today was an adventure.  I intended to do the Lost Cabin trail from Willow Creek to Sylvan Lake.  Marilyn walked with me for the first part.  Well, we missed the turnoff to the trail.  Actually I wondered about it but didn't see an obvious sign.  We should have seen it at 0.3 miles.  Marilyn turned around after 1/2 mile and planned to meet me at Sylvan Lake.  I continued on.  Here is the story in pictures:
Here's the lovely trail I continued on:

uh-oh, I'm at mile 1.5 and still on the Willow Creek trail.  I obviously missed the turn.

I continued around to the end of the loop and started over.  I headed to the post that I had wondered about the first time around, and looking closely this time, I see the written mark showing my trail to the right:

Okay, I'm on the right trail now but I'm 1 hour and 15 minutes late.   I have to make up time or Marilyn will get worried and go looking for me.   But now the problem is down trees all over the trail.  So that slows me down.

And I have a very long and steep climb.   Fortunately, after I reach Palmer Creek trailhead, the trail is very well maintained.  So now I get to enjoy the hike more.  The view is lovely.  Here is Black Elk Mountain (formerly Harney Peak) to the left:

And a lovely view of the valley below:

 After climbing about 1800 ft, I crossed the ridge and the walk was quite pleasant.  I figured I had 2 miles to go and I tried to make up time.  Here are some pretty flowers.

 and nice rocks:

My GPS showed that my first hike, the loop, was 2.6 miles with 350 elevation change.  Then I restarted the GPS and did the hike I was supposed to do, 6 miles and 1800 ft elevation change, in 3 hours.  That's faster than I would have liked but I did make up time and made it back before Marilyn got too worried.  I've been reading this wonderful inspiring book called "Grandma Gatewood's walk" about the first woman who walked the entire Appalachian trail, in 1955 at age 67.  I just thought of all she accomplished and overcame and took this all in stride with a sense of humor.  My only worry was Marilyn's worry.  I'm actually glad I got to hike 8.6 miles and climb 2100 ft!   Later on, we walked a few miles on some other trails so I easily exceeded 10 miles today.  My fitbit confirms this with over 32000 steps recorded.