I needed to burn some vacation days for 2016, so I’ve taken off most of the Fridays in September. I was thinking of what trail to hike on this particular Friday and this one is one of my favorites – I love the overlook and since the weather looked pretty good, it seemed like a good candidate. This overlook is where I scattered portions of my dad’s ashes in 2010.

I got a late start to my hike, being lazy and sleeping in. So I didn’t get to the trailhead until about 11:30 – when I got out of the truck, I smelled something smoky. When I looked around, there was a campsite across the road from the trailhead and the fire pit was smoking. I went over to investigate and it appears as though they let their fire get out of control and burn really hot and then when they left, they did not douse the fire with water. It ended up smoldering for who knows how long, getting to 2 feet or so outside of the fire ring:

I didn’t have my shovel or extra water, so I used a stick to try and dig it up and pour water on it – when I poured water on it it was still REALLY hot. I even hiked down the trail to the swampy area near the start to see if I could get more water, but was pretty much just mud this time of year. By the time I got done, it seemed OK so I headed out on my hike.

I was now out of water (2 water bottles – about 72 oz of water), so I needed to try and find some water. Fortunately, I had read about a spring along the trail – I had wanted to investigate it anyway, but now it was more important. I actually needed the water! I would have been OK without it, but it would be nice to have a little bit of water at least. Fortunately, I was able to easily find the spring – it had a reasonable trail to it and was flagged:

I was able to pull about 32 oz of water to filter from it, enough to fill one of my bottles, which was fine for this trip. Thank goodness!

After filling my bottle, I headed back to the main trail and up to the overlook. It was a reasonably clear day so the views were pretty good:

Here is a short video of the panorama:

I spent about an hour up there, eating lunch, enjoying the view and “living in the moment”. It was very pleasant up there with a slight breeze blowing. While I was eating, a bald eagle flew about 20 feet over my head! The large birds seem to like this area since there must be good thermals due to the steep cliffs.

While I was up looking at the wonderful panorama, I noticed this smoke plume to the West/Southwest:

It looks like a forest fire to me, but maybe it is something else. Hopefully so.

Since I needed to get back, after about an hour, I headed back down the trail, making EXCELLENT time back to the truck. One thing that always amazes me about this trail is its corridor. You can tell this trail was heavily used back in the day – the corridor is 6-8 feet wide all the way. Plenty of space for wide pack animals.

I got back to the truck a little before 3:30 and checked on the fire again. It appeared to have stopped smoldering, which is good. Out of caution, I stopped at the Ripplebrook store and reported it. They called some fire line and I explained the situation and they said they would send out a crew to investigate. Since rain was on the way, it most likely would have been OK, but you never know. Better to be safe than sorry.

It felt a little odd hiking all by myself. I can’t remember the last time I hiked all by myself. Usually I have Bodie or I’m with one of my friends. I decided not to take Bodie because I thought the distance would be too much for him. I guess this is just preparation for the near future when he is gone.

It was a short, but very pleasant day out in the woods with a few interesting experiences thrown in.