a beer at the top of the mountain

Today was the annual Volkssport walk at Bear Mountain, a ski resort in Macungie. They offer an easy 5K (no mountain climbing), a 5K and a 10K. Both of these take you on the cross country skiing trails on the property.

Basically, you leave the hotel, head up the road, and into the woods. The trails are rocky and full of tree roots. They advise you to wear hiking books and bring walking sticks. I forgot my stick! I remembered half way to Bonnie's. It's because we went out the back, not the front door. Totally missing the umbrella rack where it lives. Oh well. I managed.

Basically you hike thru the woods and go up. And up. And up some more. When you finally see the tree tops you know you are almost there. But you still need to go up to get to the checkpoint.

The checkpoint is at the top of the ski lift. The part where you jump off, and it goes back down. Since this is Octoberfest, there is beer at the top of the mountain. Probably not a good idea while hiking, but I drank one anyway. An Octoberfest brew. It was good, for beer.

Prost!

After I finished my beer, we head on the long road down. For than we went straight down the hill for a bout a mile. Then we headed into the woods. If we would have taken the road the other direction we would have ended up back at the hotel in less than 10 minutes. But we were good and finished the trail.

the next time you come out of the woods you're at the lake. We headed right towards the start point instead of walking around the lake.