Rainbow Trail

Today was a bone chilling hike along the Turnagain Arm Trail from the Rainbow Trailhead to the McHugh Trailhead.  On my way to the trail I stopped at McHugh and nearly got blown away by the wind that must have been in the area of 50 mph.  I decided that I was not going to hike in that wind! Plus it was only 30 degrees without the wind chill.  But since I was almost to the trail and was meeting with the Walkabouts hiking group, I decided to go ahead and meet there.  It was about an hour and a half drive from home, so I hated to give up before even actually getting to the start.  I had my dog with me and knew there was no way she would want to walk for 7+ miles in those conditions.  As the others started arriving, I decided to go ahead and do the hike. But the dog made it perfectly clear that she wanted me to carry her.  So, I packaged her up inside a fleece bag, wearing two layers of doggie clothes and put her inside my doggie backpack.  She rode back there comfortably for the whole 7 miles about about 5 hours.  We found that the trees did a pretty good job of sheltering us from the wind most of the way.  But we stopped short of McHugh because we would have been forced to cross a steep rocky section that was quite exposed, party from loose rock, but also from wind that was almost enough to knock us over.  We turned back at that point.  But it really was a lovely hike, in spite of the wind and cold.  I always enjoy hiking with the others. Due to Covid 19, precautions we all kept our masks on the entire way.  At first I found it uncomfortable, but soon I got accustomed to it and nearly forgot I was wearing it.