the Way of the Turtle

A BEAUTIFUL OCTOBER AFTERNOON, Part 1
3.1 Mile Walk at Thacher Park
Sunday, October 26, 2008

Today's race was unusual in that shortly after starting I decided to concentrate on running and only snap photos if I saw something extraordinary (well... more extraordinary than 450 runners plowing through knee deep water and ankle deep mud... which, come to think of it, is only extraordinary for me because of how many runners were there.) As a result, I resisted temptation and didn't take a single photo during the race! But I did see enough gorgeous scenery that I knew I wanted to get back out on the trails afterwards, especially along the streams in the Paint Mine area, which were running higher than I've seen them in a long time.

Parked at the Paint Mine picnic area and headed up the hill, stopping to get photos of a variety of waterfalls along the way. Between the high water levels and the leaves being off many of the trees, I saw falls I've never seen before - excellent! As always I stopped to snap a picture at the spot where my knee went out while taking a picture on New Year's Eve 2004... there's an unhappy memory (though a couple of months later I started running seriously again... a happier memory!) Lots of sunshine filtering down through the leaves remaining on the trees kept things pleasantly warm. I walked up the hill to the ledge overlooking the beaver pond, spent a few minutes hoping the beavers would put in an appearance, and then headed back down the hill.

Back at the car I changed into Injinji toe-socks to baby some potential blisters forming between a couple of toes, then headed across the road to walk along the top of the escarpment. Guess it wasn't a good day for turkey vultures... I've had times when I've seen as many as a dozen soaring on the air currents, but today - not a one. I briefly considered heading down to the Indian Ladder trail... but the thought of climbing the stairs at each end and all the people who were probably down there won out over the lure of the waterfalls at high flow, and I stayed up top, eventually looping back to the car.

After that I headed down the road to Hop Field and walked in a little ways to take some photos of the waterfall near the trailhead. I briefly considered either doing some walking on the Hop Field trails or across the road at the Glen Doone picnic area, but decided my legs were sufficiently fried and instead hopped back in the car to head home, with a brief stop at Five Rivers to walk around the ponds and maybe see some wildlife.

JMH