Today's short hike was thanks to Ellen, who asked me a few days ago if I were interested in exploring some mine-caves in the Reef Townsite area. I almost always say yes to her hikes.
We met at 7am in lower Carr Canyon and drove in separate cars. I had Hansel with me. The road has gotten badly rutted in the two months since my last Carr peak hike, so I arrived at the trailhead behind Ellen. Carr peak looked so green after the recent rains, but we were walking away from the peak.
I could have brought a second dog on the hike as were were alone, hiking first up to the old mine site, then on to the overlook at the Reef before then heading down to the waterfall. No water was running, but there were pools for Hansel to drink out of. We then walked briefly around the rocky hillside, but turned around and continued on through the group campsite, where a large group with dogs was enjoying their stay. We then walked through the campsite and down the 1.5-mile long nature trail (that did not get destroyed in the 2011 fire) before returning to our cars. We heard and saw a screeching black hawk who seemed displeased with our presence.
It was a cool hike, withv54F at the start. I was expecting it to be chilly, and wore my bright yellow sweatshirt over my grey DryWeave shirt. There was no wind at all. We had mostly overcast skies with rain in the forecast for the afternoon.
The ground was damp from recent rains, but to my surprise there were few wildflowers out.
We walked 4.1 miles in 2.4 hours.
It finally began to drizzle lightly at 4:30pm. I took Hansel out for another mile, then switched to Gretchen before the drizzle turned into a more steady rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment