It’s good to go outside with the dogs at night. Sometimes they see something, like a deer, that brings on a fit of barking and they need to be corralled. Other times I see something interesting. Last night it was the clouds. They were thin and illuminated by the waxing moon that was low in the west. These views are looking north. The dogs went inside long before I did.
Last night’s power outage made for a darker than usual night. No moon and no hazy skies also provided good looks at stars and meteors and even the northern lights! We are lucky to have less light pollution than a lot of places.
The dogs thought I was nuts standing out there in the dark and they went inside to bed. I was only up til midnight when it seemed like the aurora faded away. This morning I learned that they were even more dramatic in the wee hours of the morning. A girl’s got to sleep sometime!
Last week I made a few attempts to stay up late or set an alarm in hopes of seeing the aurora borealis but my timing was all off. I never did see the colors and pillars of light that others were seeing. Big sigh. I did see some lovely night skies though. We are lucky to be able to see lots of stars since we don’t have a terrible amount of light pollution. People here value that particular quality of life in the Methow and work hard to encourage others to cut down on night lighting or shroud their lights in such a way that the ground is lit but the light is not spread far and wide ruining others’ night time experiences. For more information on this issue, see the International Dark Sky Association website.
This is a good time to see Venus and Jupiter in the early evening sky. From our vantage point they will come close to converging in a few days.
Last week the dogs and I joined Lindsey and two of her dogs for a hike from her place in Smith Canyon up to Lookout Mountain. Before we left her husband asked if we were going straight up and she said no. That’s a good thing.
She said the whole hike should take about five hours. It is four miles and nearly 3000 feet elevation gain. It took us 5 hours and 45 minutes. I am slow. There is an easier way to get to Lookout Mountain. You can drive most of the way to a trailhead and then walk maybe a mile on a steep trail but we wanted to do the whole thing and I’m glad we did.
Smith Canyon is an oasis of green right now with lots of spring growth. At the bottom, balsamroot is in full bloom. In the canyon, maples and serviceberry and other shrubs are abundant under big pines and douglas fir trees. At the top of the canyon we reached Alder Pass and the road to the trailhead. Lindsey told me that this route is the OLD Twisp Carlton Road, before there was a bridge at Carlton. People would drive up Libby Creek to Smith Canyon and then to Alder Pass and down Alder Creek to get between Carlton and Twisp. What a difference from today’s Twisp Carlton Road that follows the meandering Methow River.
We walked about a mile on the dirt road to the trailhead and then the last stretch to the mountain top. It was a rewarding hike with great views of much of the Methow Valley. It would have been an interesting spot to watch last summer’s fires unfold. Unfortunately the sky was a hazy white that only got worse with a prescribed burn near Mazama.
My husband has decided to tell everyone that I’m a crazy dog lady and I have a bunch of friends that are also crazy dog ladies. Hmmm. Do you think that’s because I make so many of my images are of dogs? He does say it with a smile and he isn’t really complaining; at least not that I can tell. I think he’s just jealous that I get to spend so much time with these dogs.
Here are some images from today’s foggy dog walk.
My Everyday Photos 