Don't antagonize her - I love a happy medium.*

Here are pictures from the hike a few weeks ago.

This video is of my friend, Ben (a.k.a. Brother Ben) he is talking about the extinction of some tree. It's a little hard to hear him because Zach is right by the microphone, but I thought Ben's improve was great.

Pictures - in no particular order

Erin and Christian racing uphill.

Zach feels that no hike is complete until he gets a picture of holding my hand.

After Kami took the picture of Zach and me she wanted Ryan and me to take a real one.

Me - beating Zach when he's down. Kami says it's because he held my hand.

Cam wanted proof that he was on a hike - since apparently hiking is a white person's activity. A funny story - the same day that we went hiking there was a 50 mile race (yes, a 50 - on foot - race). Cam and I were coming up one steep part of the hike and moving out of the way for runners. There was this black guy running towards us, he ignored me and looked right at Cam and was like, "What's up?" Cam, like a little school girl, said, "Hey," and then proceeded to giggle and said to me, "he just made my day." I thought maybe I didn't hear the guy right and he said something else to Cam, so I asked Cam what he said that was so funny. Cam said, "Nothing, but he was a black guy running." So I said, "Well Cam, you probably made his day too, he saw you and said, "it's a black guy hiking!"

I loved hiking with Cam

Ryan

Ryan and me on top of a rock - I tried to take our picture with the view in the background and the sun kept messing with us so Lauren (who is very short) took our photo).

Some of the view behind me. The trees had already lost a lot of leaves by the time we went hiking...maybe next fall we'll get them sooner.

Ben and Zach from "Two Guys and a Gnome"

Bryce, Ben, Zach and Ryan. Bryce was told to play the fiddle, Ryan was told to look like he was in deep thought, and Ben and Zach looked at nothing and pointed.

We had about 17 people on the hike - so naturally (and I mean this in that it was unplanned but kind of naturally happened) we divided up into two groups. This is group A.

We all crammed on to a rock while waiting for group B to arrive. I had to hold on to a tree and lean back just to get this photo.

That's it! Hiking is probably over and done with for 2011 - but hopefully I'll go on more hikes in 2012!