Almost Autumn (Mobile)

What better cure is there for all the life's troubles than an evening hike on a warm almost-autumn day with your canine pals? Too bad it's only temporary...until the next hike!

And don't trust the misleading facial expression on the part of His Bassetness who resembles the Saddest Puppy in the World. He didn't want to go back! In fact, he spent most of the hike on serious basset business: tracking what I think was a fox or a coyote based on the...errr...evidence all over the trail. 

Early September Snow (Mobile)

Working seven days a week—extra hard to meet a crucial deadline—I was excited about my upcoming vacation, even if only for two days and even if only a few hours away from where I live.

The first day of this brief, but much needed break brought cool autumn weather, which wasn't unexpected for this part of the Rocky Mountains before the Equinox and official autumn. It was the second day that announced its arrival through the old and, likely, haunted hotel's windows with a wall of the gray.

It was snowing.

A lot.

The latter was not a deterrent per se: there was enough clothing for the just-around-freezing air temperature to head out into the great, but slightly frostbitten outdoors. It was the blistering wind that made the snow pellets feel like rubber bullets that got one to question going on a multi-kilometer hike.

The hike won, and I'm glad it did: this was likely one of the only chances anyone (unless he or she is a park ranger, that is) gets to have the taste of the Rockies at this elevation in the "winter." After all, the roads into this area will soon be closed until late June or even July. The only reminder of the recent change was the random pops of color, whether the still-verdant leaves peeking out from beneath all those inches of snow or the brightly colored rock enhanced by excessive moisture.

The best part (other than not running into any bears)? Hot coffee back at the hotel!

And a nap.

After all, nine kilometers and 200 meters of elevation gain let themselves be known when one's body is working overtime. 

Puppies, Strawberries, and Butterflies

All these things comprise this weekend's hiking.

How lady-like, huh?

That is, if you ignore the fact that the oversized puppies slobber excessively...

...that picking wild strawberries likely depleted the bears' supply (a little),

...and that the butterfly was a giant horned and furry moth (but an adorable one, nonetheless).

Not bad for a set of unplanned smartphone photographs!

Pop of Pink

"Why did you post a photo of a pooped-out basset shot in the worst possible midday lighting?", you ask. (Let's pretend you did.)

Good question, sir (ma'am).

This image reminds me of the summer that I thought had finally arrived until a rather belated chilly and gloomy rain season kicked in, bringing with it an all-encompassing gray.

So, this terrible lighting looks pretty good right about now!

Yermak, Susanin, and the Shining (Mobile)

Stuck in copious amounts of snow on a beautiful day in the mountains? Time to strap on some "teeth," err, snow shoes.

Like this:

At first, I engaged in some uphill snow-crushing on a cross-country ski trail, which wasn't strenuous.

Yet when I reached its end, I found myself in deep snow--to my hips--simultaneously feeling a little like Cossack Yermak discovering Siberia and Ivan Susanin leading the enemy astray to their deaths (and his). 

Cue Glinka's opera.

Along the way to the view below, I experienced typical mountaineering problems like accidentally stabbing myself with a snow shoe, while hoping not to step on a hibernating bear somewhere underneath all that white stuff. 

Before hiking back, I made a detour up (!) the side of the cliff to take some photographs, then retraced my steps back like the kid from the Shining.  

Here's to hoping that I pranked someone into thinking that I vanished beneath the earth! 

Lost World (Mobile)

Hiking in a lost world drained of color, we passed by the bridge to Nowhere, as we climbed higher and higher.

Indeed, there was Nowhere to go but up.

Lungs hurt from the influx of chilled air, as did our quads from exertion, despite all the diligent stretching. 

Boots filled with snow.

I stopped to document the disappearing surroundings with my smartphone only to be startled by a woodpecker perched on a nearby tree stump. But my loyal and long-eared canine did not give me the chance to identify it, scaring it off into the Gray.

On this frozen mountain, this was not the only avian we encountered. What now seemed like a regular fixture, a large black raven dove in and out of the fog, the only thing revealing its presence in the other--hidden--world was its audibly flapping wings.

The snow fog also concealed most of the already meager signs of civilization which is always exciting and unsettling at the same time.  

It is particularly unsettling when the aforementioned loyal canine--in possession of the second-best sense of smell of all dogs in the world--stopped, listened, and sniffed the air in a way that was much different from its standard behavior around deer and grouse.

Something more menacing was nearby, and it was almost dusk.

We headed in.

Once upon a Hike

It might come as a surprise, but despite my almost daily updates with enviable scenery, most of my life is spent in front of the computer screen. In fact, a good part of it involves screaming at the said screen, my scapegoat of choice!

Therefore, this past weekend was my first time in the mountains during this early-snow season, including two brief hikes.

A mobile shot of this trooper, camera and lenses strapped to the shoulder, ready to head out.

Even the hikes were the computer's fault: I needed to exercise myself and my dog, Roediger, and walking up a rather steep incline with snow past the ankles always does the job.  

You see, I measure a hike's success by how long my dog passes out for afterward.

He slept the rest of the day.

Of course, Roediger's experiences in this quasi-wilderness always exceed mine exponentially. First, after obsessively digging the snow, he discovered several frozen pieces of flesh--some, with black fur still intact.

I'm not sure when the massacre occurred, or by whose jaws, paws, and claws. I just hope the victim wasn't human! ;)

Then Roediger chased the mountain's most common residents, mule deer, down the cliff.

Neither the adults, nor the youngster seemed all that fazed by a 55-pound beast with long ears and giant paws, however. In fact, they just gave us the evil eye and continued to chew fiber-rich...everything.

The evil eye is a particularly effective strategy when used by a cute furbaby with a BLACK UNIBROW.

It certainly deterred us.

Oh, and while all of this was happening, I ran into the local Sasquatch, but you can only see his shadow.

hiking snow 3 850 px.jpg

I think he might've been wearing ski goggles to conceal his identity!

We climbed higher and higher, and what seemed like the top of the world was reduced to every shade of blue.

It was there that I shot my prized-possession photos of a fairly uncommon black-backed woodpecker. She was a very determined lady, to boot, if the tree riddled with beak holes is of any indication. (This avian will get her own blog entry.)

We stopped for a while to rest and to listen to what turned into an impressively rhythmic solo.

Another sound, more subtle than the best female drummer this side of the Rockies, was my favorite part.

At one point, it was so quiet, so deafeningly quiet, that we could hear the flapping wings of an always mythic raven flying past us only to disappear in the unbearable whiteness of the sunlit, partly iced-over lake.