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| Fallen leaves atop a stream. |
October is a month of travel for me. In the entire 31 days I will have been home for 7 and some change. First was a visit at the end of September and beginning of October to Sequoia to visit Jack and catch up with Trail Crew family and other parkie friends. It was the perfect time to be there: the weather was fine and autumnal, the tourist levels were relatively low, and the fall colors were filling the canyons with extra beauty.
I did a little bit of hiking, though perhaps not as much as I had planned. I took a short hike up the Tokopah Falls Trail and saw a little water in the falls yet, and took a dip in that fork of the Kaweah river (Marble Fork, I think).
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| Ants in a chunk of bee hive. |
My other hike was a good haul up to Crystal Lake in Mineral King - about 11 miles roundtrip, and lots of uphill! It was a beautiful fall morning, and sunny, but unfortunately after I took a dip in the lake an autumn breeze kicked up and froze my hair into icicles. Oops. I started hiking right away to keep warm but definitely felt it! I suppose October is a bit late to be swimming in alpine lakes over 8000 ft in elevation. Mineral King Valley is one of the places where there's aspens - it's actually a lot more like the Eastern Sierra in the way it looks. And those aspens were golden and glowing in the sun when I was up there - absolutely beautiful.
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| Crystal Lake |
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| Mineral King Valley |
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| Mineral King Valley |
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| Hole in the Wall |
One of the days Jack and I went to Kings Canyon to Hole in the Wall, where the trail crew there has their home base, and he cooked dinner while I hung out and played music with the folks there. We slept out under the stars (so beautiful) and I woke up to the sunlight spreading over Hole in the Wall - a beautiful and peaceful sight.
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| At the end of Tokopah Falls Trail |
And now I'm in Moab, after a very brief stint home, and apparently I got a bit overstretched because the two nights of less-than-optimal sleep during travel out here nipped me in the butt and I came down with some sort of flu as soon as I got here. So again, not as much hiking as I hoped, but I'm enjoying just being in Moab and exploring around town. The library here is gorgeous, and there's lots of cool bike/hike trails that go under the roads so you can pop up in different places around town. There's a pool in her neighborhood and I've gone swimming a couple times; there's a rock wall traverse right around the corner and I've climbed around on that a couple times. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be up to a little longer hike(/bike combo?) where Alyssa drops me somewhere on her way to work at Arches.
Which, yeah, I haven't seen yet. Hahaha! Hopefully I'm feeling more energetic soon that I can explore the famous arches before I leave! Eek!
But honestly the biggest goal in all of this is to not get Alyssa sick. I'm pretty much quarantined to my room (and private bathroom) and one chair in the living room. I'm not allowed in the kitchen at all. She's taking immune boosters and regularly wiping down things that she's touching, and I'm taking immune boosters and regularly wiping down things that I'm touching. Hopefully all this caution works out or it's gonna be a total flop of a visit!
I'm here until next Friday and then I start my trip home. On Wed/Thu we're going to go to Alyssa's house and do some hot springing (so excited!), and Friday I take a bus to Green River and twiddle for several hours until the train leaves for Reno.
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