Facebook turns out to be a pretty cool social web site sometimes. I chatted about it with a few folks and many of us seem to have the same experience. We sign up, we fill out the fields and then are amazed that we start making contact with fellow high schoolers we lost contact with ages ago. In some cases, we “friend” each other and it doesn’t go much further. In some cases, we get together and start chatting it up via email or IM.
In some very rare cases, one of us is traveling “in the hood” of the other and we meet up. When Greg emailed me that he would be in the Seattle area for a couple days and wanted to know if we could indulge in a hike together, I jumped at the chance. Hadn’t seen or chatted with Greg in 25 years or so. The friendship Greg and I had basically came about on the wrestling mat at Bismarck Henning High School. This was back when being on the wrestling team (late 70s / early 80s) was just a notch or two higher than the Chess Club and barely squeaked out more respect than the Rifle Club. With just a handful or wrestlers on the team, we became more of an extended family for a season and had no illusions of earning great accolades from anyone other than our fellow wrestlers or parents. 
From about 9 AM to 5 PM, we chatted about everything from what has happened in our lives, family, careers, politics and even debated religion around a bit. As it turns out, Greg is in damn better shape than I am but he was quite tolerate of my slowing down the pace. Didn’t really matter much because this was never a race but about the hike, the view and the conversation. Although if we have a repeat hike or run in the future someday (in Illinois or Washington), I cannot say that I won’t train a little bit harder before hand. Some habits die hard and I guess some of them should.
Turned out there was a decent number of hikers on the trail for a Monday. Many of the more experienced hikers gave us warm greetings, while (obviously) thinking we were heathens without our hiking poles. For more info about hiking poles, you can check out this article on slackerpacker.com. We even had one guy mention to us that only an American would consider taking a hike without a pair of poles. Not sure if I’m the type of guy that could bend under such peer pressure but who knows? Anyhoo ...
The Dickerman Mountain hike is a 4.3 mile trek each way, so it clocks in just under 9 miles round trip. At the summit (5723 feet), the views are spectacular from all directions. The hike itself has an elevation gain of 3,700 feet, which is a bit of a trudge for only 4 miles of switchbacks. At the summit, we got to see two aspects of the view as the clouds started rolling in 15-20 minutes after we reached the summit. Most of the pictures you see here start off about 400 feet from the summit and that is when the views become particularly interesting. 
If you want to know more about Mt. Dickerman, here is a link to the Washington Trails Association web site.
http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/mount-dickerman/?searchterm=dickerman
Cheers!
Dwayne
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