Well, of course we took the dogs! And of course they had fun!
Temperatures have been cold for the last week or so with lows in the single digits. Brrr. Ice is forming on the lakes and ponds but most of it is too thin for walking. We did find a shallow area of a pond that seemed safe. The bubbles in the ice were fascinating. I wonder if they are from the decomposing wood in the water below? We could see them in the middle of the ice and also where it looked like they were at the bottom surface of the ice. We guessed that it was about three inches thick. Farther out in the deeper area, it looked cracked and we avoided it. Some folks have said they could see fish and turtles under the ice but we had no such luck.
MA and I took the dogs to the area above Pipestone Canyon last week. It was very cold and very sunny. We didn’t stop very much and stayed in the sun as much as possible. The days are short and the sun is low in the sky so when we returned to the car, we were in deep shade. We wondered about the sanity of two joggers who were just getting started as we loaded the dogs.
Last week the dogs and I managed one last trip to the mountains before the deep freeze settled in. I’d intended to just walk in the hills as usual but after many days of wet dreary weather I awoke to a glorious bluebird day with snow-capped mountains on the horizon and I could not resist one last chance to be up there before winter really arrives.
I knew it would be cold and we’d be walking on snow and ice-covered surfaces and in the shade much of the time so picking out clothes after the long warm (for November) spell was challenging. It was 29 degrees Fahrenheit at the Blue Lake trailhead – the coldest temperature I’ve seen in months. Brrrr. I must have picked out the right combination of layers because I kept comfortably warm moving briskly on the trail and only stopping in sunny spots.
The log footbridge at the lake’s outlet was snow-covered and I didn’t have the nerve to try crossing it. Heck, that thing scares me in summer. The dogs happily ran back and forth while I dithered about it. The sun had barely crept across the mountain ridge behind the lake leaving the lake mostly in the shade. We enjoyed the sunshine and met two other hikers with a pretty dog before heading down the trail and saying goodbye to the mountains for now.
I walked my dogs with two friends and their dog, Bailey this morning at Big Valley. It was a rainy, kind of gray morning but not too cold. The dogs didn’t seem to mind and the rest of us were dressed appropriately for the weather. Bailey is a small dog and her thick coat sheds water. She never really got wet. Sky has taken over as star of the show and she is in just about all of the photos. Luna seems to steer away from the camera and lets Sky have her fifteen minutes of fame. We saw a pair of American Dippers in the river. Belted Kingfishers chattered back and forth and we saw a Bald Eagle fly overhead.
My Everyday Photos 