Lower Ash Canyon

Today was the last hike with the dogs this year. Tomorrow morning I am taking off with Eric for the long drive to Chicagoland over the holiday. Kevin doesn't walk the dogs and the dogs needed exercise. I took Sammy, Sadie, Minnie and Zeke out for a four-mile hike at 9:15am.

We had a storm blow over yesterday. It's now hampering the Central Plains and will haunt the East Coast after C'mas. This morning the residual was still there in the mountains. A fresh layer of light snow covered the peaks. This snow didn't hamper our hike at all. Where we started there was no snow, but the wind was blustery and there was cold drizzle. Staying in the canyon kept us from the blustery winds, so we stayed low.

I had wanted to go higher at the start but the higher we drove, the stronger and colder the winds were. This didn't seem to bother the dogs, but I was cold! We ended up walking uphill from the lower canyon trailhead, followed the dry creek bed to the official trailhead two miles up, and walked up one more switchback before turning around. Fast-moving dark grey clouds overhead made this an arctic blast challenge. Dead trees from the 2011 fire continue to drop their weakened branches. Even live trees weakened by the summer floods are also uprooting after heavy winds.

Prospectors are back in the lower canyon digging for placer gold again. There were now holes that weren't there the last time I walked through here.

There was no one around, but by 10am I could hear target shooters in the lower canyon. More were coming uphill as we were going downhill via the forest road. The dogs stayed nearby and enjoyed the romp. The three younger ones were aheadm but Sammy was close-by up front.

When we got back to the van, the external temperature gauge read 39F. My hands were cold! It was warmer outside the house at 44F. Most of the clouds stayed over the mountains.