Wallace Falls

Galena and I took Caedmon his first real hike yesterday, up to Wallace Falls. (OK, it's a state park, so it wasn't a real hike, but it was outdoors, several miles, over dirt, next to a stream, and ending at a waterfall. He certainly thought it was real.) The weather was beautiful: more like two weeks ago (in the upper 70's) than last week (snowing). We'd planned more for cold than for sunshine, so I'm afraid that Caedmon was both overdressed and under-protected from the sun. He didn't get burned, though, which we'd been worried about. It was good just to get out, even if we turned around at the first set of falls, as Caedmon was getting tired of the backpack by that point. One interesting note is that as we were on our way down, but still more than two miles from the trailhead, we passed a group of older ladies who were hiking together. We'd seen them earlier, on our way up, and I was impressed that they had gotten so far up, since one of them was walking very slowly. When we passed them this time, she was sitting on a stump, and suddenly slumped over just as we passed. Her friends caught her, but she was clearly having difficulties. It turns out that (a) she was a borderline diabetic, probably with low blood sugar; (b) she'd probably overheated as well; and (c) she'd fallen earlier on the hike, and had badly pulled a muscle in her thigh. After eating a sandwich, she was feeling better, and was able to make a little progress, but she was still going very slowly. It didn't quite feel right to leave them alone, so Galena took Caedmon back to the car, while I stayed with them. I ended up carrying her on my back through some of the rougher parts of the trail, but she managed to walk by herself most of the way. Caedmon and Galena were waiting for us, of course.