We're talking spring here!

Well, I'm over in Fortuna right now, until tomorrow, and spring is starting to show. For a guy who is starting to dislike the long cold winters in Susanville, this has been a welcome break in the monotony. The color green has come back to my life. Yesterday Tracey and I went out to a creek in the redwoods near here and had a marvelous time with the dogs, taking pictures and laying in the sun. Since it's still mid February that was a really nice change from the cold, white, slushy, muddy mess that is the outdoor experience that I have been used to lately.

I say it all the time, but ya gotta love it!!

Warming and drying..

Yeah, right! OK, I guess it has been warming but the drying part is going to be a slow process.

The day before yesterday I got to get on my bike for the first time since Death Valley. I went out in the valley near Standish and went for a short ride... 13 miles. That's about all I could take, my butt has to get used to my bike seat all over again. I hope this starts off the bike riding season of 2008. 13 miles is a short ride for me normally and this one was all flat so no challenges. Still it was great to be out and it was nice weather-wise.

Yesterday I tried to take a long walk up the Bizz... not a good plan. I ended up going a little over a mile up the trail but I had no tracks to follow except the cross country snow skiers tracks, and I was doing my best not to destroy their trail by walking in it. See Chris? I'm learning. The snow is still over a foot deep and it's heavy and full of water and is tough to walk in. Anyway, I found a nice patch of pine needle duff under a big yellow pine that was dry enough to sit on and ate my lunch there. On my way back down I stopped at the second trestle and was looking at the river when I noticed these bolts had been tampered with. Someone has taken the nuts off of most of them and has removed some of the long bolts. I'm not sure what this does to the integrity of the bridge railings, but they had to be there for some reason and removing them can't be a good thing. Tomorrow before leaving town I'll try to notify someone to go out and look at it. I'm not sure if it's the County, City or BLM. Kind of pisses me off that someone is doing this kind of vandalism. It would sure be nice to catch them doing it.

Think Spring!!

44°

Yeah, that's right... 44°. That felt like a real heat wave today so I went out to enjoy it a little. I parked at the depot parking lot and walked from there. I must say that it was truely the nicest day we have had in quite a while. I saw one person at the beginning of my walk and he was going back the other way and I never ran into anyone else the rest of the time I was there.

The snow is pretty deep in places up on the Bizz, and I'm sure it gets deeper the higher up you go. This year would have been a great time for me to get into cross country skiing. This first picture is looking back from the first trestle to the Hobo Camp area. You can see the trail that goes to Hobo Camp on the right.





I have taken many pictures in the last few years from this vantage point. It always strikes me as a picturesque scene. Must just be me, huh? Oh well, I don't care, at least I like it.

I did find a fair number of critter tracks, mostly birds but this one looked like something with toes and claws. I thought at first maybe raccoon but I think it might have just been a squirrel. Half the fun of walking up here in the snow for me is trying to decipher the tracks you find.

So 44° today and maybe warmer in the next few days... won't be long till my absolutely favorite season, spring.

News Flash!

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

Winter beauty

It warmed up today to the mid 40's. I needed to get out after being pretty much home bound by storms for the last few days. The snow was about a foot deep where these pictures were taken about 2½ miles up the Bizz. I ran into the 2 ladies who put the ski tracks in there and thanked them for the nice trail. They were heading back and I had a feeling that maybe they had gone a little too far since both seemed tired and they still had a long way to go when I ran into them. They stopped on this bridge so I turned around there too.


The fresh snow from last night left a nice bed for tracks and there were some interesting ones. The bird tracks really got me since you could see when they took off and their feathers had touched the soft snow. Way cool scenery and for a change I was over dressed. Tomorrow we are supposed to have more bad weather but today made it all worth while.

Snow? What snow?

Since I got back from down south last Sunday it has snowed virtually every day. It's not all that deep but there's more coming. The big snow we had at the end of 2004 was much more than we have now but it's still easy to get tired of the color white. Or is that lack of color? Anyway all this wet will probably lead to a much greener spring when it finally warms up and I guess that will be a payback of sorts. Where's that global warming?

Back from the desert

I came back from the desert a little earlier than I had planned due to the weather. I woke up in the place I camped out by the Racetrack in Death Valley and was ready to go on down the Lippincott road into Saline Valley to get to the hot springs. I listened to the radio weather forecast and changed my plan. Low snow levels and cold weather kind of made the reason for my trip, to get out of the cold weather, moot. But it was great while it lasted. The first picture was taken at Hole in the Wall. Very cool rock formations up there.

I tried to go to Corridor canyon but don't think I walked far enough. That's where the second picture was taken... below Ubehebe Mine. The Inyo mountains are the ones with the snow on them. Saline Valley is at the foot of those mountains.

I was a little disappointed at not getting to the hot springs but I might have to go back when the main roads are open this spring.

For those that like to live vicariously, check out my web album.