Has anyone ever told you to go take a hike? I told myself to do that very thing yesterday. About 1:00 in the afternoon I decided to find a trail my friend Chris McKee told me about. Just a short distance from the cabin. I loaded my pockets with important things like my lipstick, my small camera, water, phone, car keys, and set out.
I was a good girl. I let my husband know where I was going since I would be alone.
The trail of the bear? That got me wishing I could see a bear but knowing I wouldn’t. But I did want to and thought how I would jangle my keys and make lots of noise if I did see one. No dice, though.
So I set out – I was walking too fast. I kept telling myself to slow down, I wasn’t in a race, I should look around. So I took many short breaks to look around me. In “My Photo Tips” on the tabs above, which don’t seem to be working quite right – but I talk about that – always take a look behind, to the sides, etc. I took my advice.
Here I am, on the trail and happy, wearing that damn shirt I bought at WalMart about 7 years ago for under $5 I think. It won’t wear out!
Here’s the trail.
Elevation started about 6,000 feet and went up to over 7,000.
First I saw a bunch of pine cones. All kinds – they should have been labeled. Close up, a pine cone could be many things.
This could be little hillocks with just a trace of snow. Or something. I started wondering about Fibonacci’s sequence in nature and couldn’t believe math had entered my mind, or anything to do with it. Anyway, I think pine cones follow Fibonacci’s Golden Ratio.
Now this was cool. What a great shape; such a graceful tree.
About now my knee was hurting a little. Oops – forgot the Aleve. I have chondromalacia patella in my right knee, whatever that is. It’s an ailment common to runners; however, I never run. I am overweight – but I get a runner’s problem instead of a weight problem. Go figure. Anyhow, I adjusted my gait a little and went on.
Look! It’s a rock. A rock for the ages. (Slap myself.) It does have an interesting pattern though, which I could tell you about if I was remotely interested in geology.
I have to digress here – when I was teaching fifth grade, I was almost the only teacher in the school who did science. I found a tape in the library called Igneous Rocks - yes, a title to excite anyone – but it went with our unit so I showed it. Who would have known that volcanoes fall into the igneous rock category! It was the most popular tape I showed all year. And yes, I do mean tapes. Schools are always eons behind in technology. I had to buy my own DVD player.
How about this pine cone? It landed upright, apparently, when it fell, because I’m pretty sure it didn’t come from that little tree.
About now I was getting hot. I’d only brought one bottle of water because I didn’t expect it to get hot. I was rationing. There was no trail map so I didn’t know how long this was going to be. I’d picked up a pamphlet at the trail head and it had numbers where you could stop at markers and read about how it would have looked from the point of view of the Tubatulabal Indians who were native to the Southern Sierra Nevada. However, I put the pamphlet in a crevice where I thought the next person might see and use it. Why? I never saw a sign post with a number, and the trail map said “not to scale.”
I saw a butterfly. I saw a marker. Sign post #12. Where were the first 11? Now I wished I had the not-to-scale map so I could find out how many signs there were.
It was a beautiful day. But I felt a little shivery. Uh-oh. It wasn’t all that hot, but I’ve had heat exhaustion three times previously and I know the signs. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I turned around and went back the way I came. I was probably almost at the mid-point anyhow, but I couldn’t risk finding out.
Going back the same way had its advantages, however. I saw these flowers – I think perhaps they are called Snow flowers although they don’t match google images exactly. Anyone know for sure?
Here’s a close-up.
When I got back to the cabin (about a 2-minute drive), I looked online for the Unal Trail and found it was 3.6 miles. I’m sure I went almost two of those 3.6. I’ll go back another time. I’m sure I’ll tell myself to take a hike again.
