Since I saw moving purple spots last time I tried to hike, the next time I went up the hill, I stayed closer to the cabin. Perhaps it was just an excuse to be lazy; on the other hand, maybe I was using my noggin.
I left home around 8:30. It now takes me almost 2 hours to get the approximately 26 miles to the cabin, so an early-ish start is beneficial to having a not-too-hot drive and getting there with enough time to have a full day. It’s been awhile since I photographed my favorite bridge, 6.5 miles up the road.
It wasn’t an entirely do-nothing stay. Our wood stove supply was getting low; Trail Guy tossed a bunch of chunks toward my chopping block and said, “There! That ought to keep you busy for awhile.” I said, “Half an hour, tops”. Good guess. Prolly took just as long to stack it.
We walked to Crystal Creek, and then a little farther. (No moving purple spots—thank you for your concern.)
First, a stop at the pack station. Trail Guy likes to make sure the water troughs are full.
The old pack station building is a disaster. If anyone points this out to The Park, I guarantee that the answer will be “We are short staffed”. My inclination is to say, “Get off your duff and off your screen and get your patoot out into your areas of responsibility and for Pete’s Sake, DO SOMETHING!” I wisely am keeping my yap shut.
Next stop: the creek where the packers used to cross with their strings of mules. Yeppers, the water is low. It’s August.
Onward.
I still marvel that Crystal Creek has held to its new course after 2023.
I opted out on the off trail stuff because of the the meat bees, which make nests in the ground.
Instead, I inspected a few things, experimented with the iPhone as a camera, trying to understand how to get it to focus.
These are cottonwood trees; the iPhone called them “poplars”. Maybe they are in the same family.
Back to the cabin, and no, this is not our cabin. I don’t show our cabin, because this is the World Wide Web, and we are already inundated with visitors, all friends, but inundation is inundation. (You may quote this piece of brilliance).
It was a short stay. I missed Tucker, and he missed me.
4 Comments
I volunteered and painted the Pack Station building many moons ago, under the supervision of a trusty Ranger, because apparently you can’t trust the public to do government work without supervision. She eventually felt sorry for me doing all the work, so gleefully joined me to finish the job. I think we did a pretty good job way back then.
Last year, I volunteered to paint it once again, because it was pretty much looking like in your current picture. However, the Park couldn’t figure out how to approve a volunteer doing the job in this day and age, so it didn’t get done.
Oh, for the good old days!
Oh Glenn, I feel your pain. I am disgusted that we mentioned the Cold Springs Bridge to the Park, because suddenly they are freaked out by the thought of paint flakes falling in the river and we MUST have a hazard waste (or some such thing) person on site, never mind that paint flakes have been falling into the river for a decade now. Sigh. Sense is no longer common.
I’m glad your walk was purple-spotless!
As my grandmother would say, “He who cuts his own wood, warmeth himself twice!”
Is there a small remnant of the Bear Patch still intact? I remember the days when the patch would remain all summer. Maybe Al Gore was right and we’re all gunna die of Global Warming!
Just curious–why does it take 2 hours to go up the hill when most of us can do it in 75-90 careful minutes?
Last Sunday some of bearSKIN* was still there; that photo is about a week old now.
Maybe I crawl through the washboard more carefully than most people. Sometimes I stop for a photo, sometimes I stop to check inventory at Silver City.
*Remember Bert Reynolds on the bearskin rug? The snow patch supposedly resembles that, or some other, bearskin. And no, I never saw BR on a rug; I was a well-protected child.