Family visit

Mom and Dad (and Zippy the wonderdog) are in town visiting for a couple weeks and house shopping.... we're having a good time and hopefully they'll find a place to make a home base up here!
At least they are enjoying our cooler weather, low-to-mid 80sF is *much* more pleasant than upper 90sF. Ugh. That's why WE moved away. Don't get me wrong, I love LA and the Gulf Coast.... the food is amazing and the people are great, and it will always be "home", but sweating like pig 10 seconds after going outside (and that's just standing there, not even working!) is not my cup of tea. I'd rather be partially frozen :-)

Interesting hike on Curry Mountain Trail

Ok, first off, wth? It should NOT feel like late July on April 27. But we persevere and press on through the (dry) heat and swarms of insects.
Fortunately we didn't encounter anyone else along the approx. 7 mile hike, since we often launched into unexpected sprints in effort to escape bees and yellow jackets.


The trail, which begins near Metcalf Bottoms, is a nice moderate climb with some attractive seasonal views of the surrounding ridges.
Very dry conditions, felt drought-like even, yet flowers are still thriving in patches along the way.




A few dazzling displays of Dwarf Crested Iris along the way in the spots that hold more moisture. Though we did encounter a few that looked sun bleached and wilted.






At 3.3 miles, we reach the trail intersection and turn onto Meigs Mtn Trail. After a brief walk, the Meigs Mtn Cemetery appears. Very peaceful.

Moving onward......




We reach our goal: backcountry campsite #19. Not one of our favorites, it is small, plain and bisected by the trail. Our opinions were influenced by the presence of horse poop and the freakin' cloud of gnats and some kind of giant mosquitoes that hovered around us at the site. But we are always equipped with gnat hats - total sanity savers.

About halfway back to the trailhead, we encounter a long black snake on the side of the trail. A bit of luck just like our bat encounter... I stopped to dig in the pack for a tissue (damn you, pollen) and spotted it, otherwise we'd have trucked on by.

Back to the Jeep and on the road by 1:30.....
New goal: vanilla ice cream cones!

More hike photos get uploaded to my flickr account, if you're interested.