Lower Miller Canyon

Our monsoon season is coming to a close.  It's been less active than normal, but today we had another day of puffy clouds and cool breezes.  I couldn't pass this up to hike up lower Miller Canyon during the afternoon.  I'd been taking the dogs here in the late afternoon, when the setting sun is already behind the mountains.  It was nice to see the trees and grass lighted up with sun halos, instead of walking through this forest in deepening shade .

Susan and I met at the lower parking lot at 2:10pm.  Allie was already barking with delight as Susan drove up.  All five dogs were ready to go!  This is one hike I know Minnie likes, as she enjoys flopping in the stream to wet her belly.  Or as I call it, "getting her nipples wet."  No other cars were around

We never met another person while hiking the trail.  We started early enough to avoid the afternoon mountain bikers, and later than the usual for local traffic from the neighboring Foothills Ranch housing area.   Sweetie was in the lead and stayed close by, getting distracted only twice by a white-tailed deer.

We took plenty of water breaks.  Minnie can't handle the distance much anymore without frequent breaks.  I'm starting to worry about her.  She needs the exercise to lose some weight, but her excess weight is making it hard for her to move.  

I need to be more assertive about Minnie's weight loss. It's been a week since I put her on a restricted diet, and it's going to take a few months to get her to lose even five pounds, but today I noticed how she struggled.  It took us 2.5 hours to walk 2.9 miles!

Miller Canyon is beautiful this time of year.  The grass is now going to seed.  The last of the wildflowers are blooming.  We came across a few wild peas.  

It's always exciting to spot new things along an old hiking route. At one popular campsite we spotted something red across the creek and at the base of an oak tree.  Susan and I were curious to see what that was.  Was it trash left behind by bordercrossers, or a strange flower blooming later than usuual? It turned out to be a memorial with three small crosses and one tortoise brooch.  How long as that been there?  The crosses were facing away from the trail, but the artificial flowers caught our attention.

We continued walking uphill.  It's 1.5 miles from the lower parking lot to the upper parking lot, but we turned back before the upper parking lot to avoid any confrontation with the Beatty ranch hound dogs that were already barking.  We took the dirt road back, crossing back to the creek a half-mile farther.  The road is exposed and I needed to get Minnie back to some water.  I also discovered an old mine entrace nearby that I neer knew was here before.

There is still plenty of water in the creek and Minnie wanted to stop in every pool.  This was a slow hike with a lot of sitting down and watching the dogs have fun.  Susan talks a lot about Randal and that is expected.  His death is still too painful.  There was no one to bother us, or to distract us.

We made it just below the Beatty Ranch at the upper parking lot.  The hounds weren't barking and we didn't want to get them started.  We made it just short of the upper parking lot and took the road back for a half-mile before cutting down a wash back to the creek.  We needed to get back to water because Minnie was panting and struggling.

Susan knows all the hidden trails around here.  Like me, she likes to explore the smaller draws.  One of these days we will explore the rocky steep hillside.  It's in these steep hillsides where drug runners keep guard

Near the end of this 2.9-mile hike we came across a young couple pulling the invasive buffelgrass from a campsite.  Buffelgrass is from Africa.  Unlike the native grasses, it can grow back after a fire and take over a landscape.  It's an invasive grass that the Natinal Forest Service wants eradicated from its parks.  This couple was voluntarily doing this work.  The back of their full-sized pick-up was already full of bags of buffelgrass.