Celebrating 5 de Mayo at Nesika, May 3rd

Another weekend at Nesika. This time Lisa planned a potluck to celebrate 5 de Mayo, so we all brought ingredients to make some Mexican dishes and share. The hike up was beautiful as expected. With the spring and all the snow melting at higher elevations, streams, rivers and falls are incredible. The new green and flowers added a lot to the beauty of the area. We got to Nesika at around noon, perfect timing to do lunch. The original idea was that everybody would take care of their own lunch and the potluck was for the night, but since everybody brought a lot of food, we decided to share some of it for lunch. Marci made a great 7 layer dip that got devour in a couple of minutes. In the afternoon we did a small loop hike to Franklin Ridge. This trail was the same we did back in January when it was all covered in snow. It was really interesting to visit the spot were we sunk to our waist in snow and see it in full bloom. Back at the lodge we spent some time at the view point enjoying the views and then it was back to cook. We made tortillas, guacamole, taco salad, fajitas and all sort of Mexican plates, it was a lot of food. The following morning, I woke up really early and went to the view point to enjoy the sunrise. In the pictures you’ll see how beautiful it gets early in the morning. After a nice breakfast with Pan de Jamon and pancakes we took off on our way back. Instead of going down straight to the parking lot, we hiked to Devil’s rest and then cut back to Wahkena falls and back to the parking lot. This hike was long and beautiful with great views of the Gorge and tons of flowers.