Saturday marked the date of the first annual Ballroom Dress Hike organized by the newly formed Alpine Costume Hiking Organization of the Universe, or ACHOU for short.
The ACHOU headquarters is located in the Magic School Bus on the property of Pete Amyoony, in Dunster, and from there silliness is organized into reality.
The hike was very beautiful and the silliness factor was definitely high. To our surprise, we found hiking in dresses to be somewhat impractical. I would strongly suggest short skirts or tu-tus for hikes with lots of dead-fall to climb over as long gowns tend to snag on branches and impede leg movement. As predicted, mosquitoes were attracted to the private regions but were quickly fanned out by the motion of the skirt.
The hike is about 6 km and is quite steep, but we all made it up to Tom’s cabin in under 4 hours. It is a cozy little alpine cabin with two double beds and is positioned beside the beautiful Lake Dunster. The group camped there Saturday and Sunday night and did day hikes in the alpine to different peaks over looking the spectacular Raush River Valley as well as the Robson Valley.
Hikers should book the cabin at Dunster General Store to find out if any supplies are needed for the cabin, and to avoid having to sleep in two small bunks with sixteen other people.
The happy hikers included, Carla Trask, Anya and Lena Richter, Jacob Moser, Antoine Tinguely, Tanguy Riviere, Anais Cramm, Pauel Romanowski, Cynthia Routhier, Jody Hawkins, Luke Lewis, and Jordan Leech (a.k.a. Bumper Copeland).
