In the car on the way to the trailhead Rob asks “Did you pick this trail because it’s almost Valentine’s day?” “No, I didn’t” I replied with a laugh, but that’s perfect! Today will be known as the Ballantine Valentine’s hike! And to top it off, I came across a boulder formation sort of shaped like a heart — awwww...too funny.

On a fairly breezy morning, 15 Trailblazers started off on the southern half of the Pine Creek loop, and met up with the start of the Ballantine trail at the halfway point of this loop. The hike is a pretty steady climb, with a footbed of pea sized granite gravel mixed with rocks of all sizes. It was a lot like walking in a trough — mostly narrow and angled inward, with the bottom of the trough sometimes not any wider than the width of your hiking boot. Once we got away from the SR 87 noise, it was actually pretty peaceful. It was a bit warmer than our last couple of hikes, so before too long, we were already shedding the first clothing layer. We couldn’t help but think of our relatives back east (most of us originally from colder climates, and 4 of our 15 from the Chicago area) — this sure beats those bitter temps!

The rock formations along the way were interesting and amazing:

We got about half way to Rock Creek, and found a gathering of boulders that were easy enough for the whole group to perch on, and had fantastic views while we ate.

This ended up being our turnaround point for most of us, but three wandering souls couldn’t resist the urge to keep on exploring, so they decided to head up the Pipeline trail, while the rest of us continued back to the trailhead.

The other 12 hikers took the north half of Pine Creek loop back to the trailhead, and were treated to views below us of a little bit of water in Pine Creek. We also spotted a lone hiker walking alongside the creek. The 12 of us finished the hike in a little over 5 hours, and our three ‘escapees’ finished almost a full 3 hours after we did, as one of the hikers strained something in his left knee. Too bad there wasn’t any whiskey in the bottle they found — it could’ve helped ease the pain!