Back to August |
A Fat Old lady Takes Up Climbing |
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| September has been busy, with school starting up, car trouble, bouts with the flu, etc., but I have done a bit of hiking when possible. On September 4th, a sunny day, Jascha and I went for a walk along the Powerline Pass Trail, even though I was ill and wheezing. I was rewarded with a close up view of a mama moose with a calf, right next to the trail. Click here to see the pair. They started out together, but the cow moved across the trail, leaving the baby behind. For awhile, all hikers were stranded, as everyone knew better than to get between a cow and her calf. Finally, the calf noticed that mama had moved on, and ran to rejoin her. Here's the cow alone. And here's the calf running to catch up. Here's an unrelated photo taken that day along the trail, of red fireweed leaves. |
| Although I first hiked up the Gold Cord Lake trail in August, I liked it so much that I revisited the trail a couple more times in early September. On the 5th, I went up with Lisa, a friend and colleague who enjoys hiking. After reaching the Lake shore, we decided to hike all around it. The next day, I went up again, hoping to get some better pictures of pikas, but was unsuccessful in that quest. There is also some type of small shore birds up there that I hope to photograph next summer. Here are some of the scenes from those two days. |
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Bigger versions of the Gold Cord Lake Trail pix: Lisa and view of Gold Cord Lake space Scrub willow seed pod, closeup space Jascha & I on a rock (photo by Lisa) Autumn red fireweed leaves and seed pods space Old miner's cabin near the trail space Closeup of blueberry bounty |
| Whenever I climb Flattop, I look across the Powerline Valley and see a trail that goes up a gully between O'Malley Peak and Little O'Malley. I've been wanting to try it, and finally got around to it. O'Malley Peak itself is a very rugged pinnacle that would be difficult without equipment and probably impossible for my dog. So after hiking across the valley and up the gully, we turned left to take the smaller peak. There was some snow up there, which is always a treat for Jascha. |
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Large view of tundra colors and mountain peaks (at left,
above), seen from the trail |
While August gave us record high temperatures, September has delivered one of our earliest first snows, delivering 6-8" of wet snow to the city on the 25th. After a couple days of snow, temperatures warmed up a few degrees. Mother Nature followed up with record breaking rainfall for the rest of the week. The collage below shows closeups of plants in my yard, and a scene from local lake trail. You can get a full-screen view of the Cheney Lake Snow by
clicking here. |
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| Back to August 2004 |
