If you're super tired of reading these posts, then imagine how I feel, having done 348 of 'em in a row (or 352, adjusted for inflation).
It's Sunday today, and I woke up super early in the morning (having passed out again last night two hours earlier than I usually do. See, this is what comes of getting up early). I spent the time before my alarm went off editing podcasts, then started my day around the regular time, deciding that, if the weather permitted, that I would take my first hike of the year today.
One of the goals--in fact, the first goal on my list--for 2021 is to go on a hike every month of the new year.
I mentioned recently that I was never able to find the hiking trail that I went up last year--fairly early in the year--where I took a picture of an AT-ST and sang the David Bowie and Icehouse songs. I looked every time I went back to the falls, but never could find it. This time, however, I parked way down at the mouth of the canyon--almost a mile from the falls--and took the long way up. When I go running at night, I have two pairs of shoes to choose from: one run-down pair where all the tread is worn down, and one newer pair I only wear when there's snow or ice out (since the tread is still intact). As luck would have it, I put on the newer pair that morning, otherwise I would've simply had to turn around and go home, or walk twenty feet, slip on the ice, and then turn around and go home.
You see, everything up in the canyon was still either completely frozen or half frozen. You saw trails like this one:
And it was hard enough to keep my footing with the newer shoes on (I slipped, if I had to guess, four or five times). But man, there were SO many people there--mostly youthful and attractive student-types, but also a absolute metric tonne of Hispanic families out with their young (or very young) children. It was easily as busy as I've ever seen the trail during the past year, and I was surprised to see a bunch of hikers (maybe 15 to 20 percent) wearing masks on the trail. That's probably what you're supposed to do, but I'm a jaded, selfish tool now (well, more so than before), and even told my mom she could go visit her brother in California now that she's already had the virus and recovered.
It is January, which is traditionally pretty miserable (I remember driving home from Big's house one night, and seeing that it was negative seven on my car's thermometer. I even took a picture of it with my primitive phone camera to mark the "occasion"), but has been very nice. It was in the upper thirties this afternoon, and as long as I kept moving, I didn't get cold.
As I walked along, I looked up on my right, and there appeared to be an upper trail much, much higher, running parallel to how I was walking. I suspected that, were I able to get up there, that would be the long-lost trail I'd been seeking.
Turns out, it was only accessible if you went a certain way, on the bike trail rather than the walking/stroller trail. Since it's winter and all covered with ice anyway, there was no need for a bike trail in January, and that's how I chose to walk to the falls (I walked back on the other one--which turned out to be way slipperier). And to my surprise, I found the trail where I'd sang "Space Oddity" last year, a trail with absolutely no one on it.
I made my slow way up the hill, happy to have found it again after almost a year (I believe it was March the last time), and excited to explore it . . . but it was pretty steep, and I worried (just a little) that it would be a lot harder coming back down than it was going up it.
I didn't see a solitary other hiker on this trail (which is to be expected--it's almost a Brigadoon-type location, one I could never find when I wanted to), and after a while, I found the overlook where I recorded "Electric Blue" (forgetting the lyrics pretty completely that time, ultimately having to redo the middle verse in the summertime to make it work). I had been unable to find my tripod (turns out it was in my mom's car, which I took to the storage unit right after Christmas to unload all the Christmas decorations and tree), so I just put my phone on my selfie stick and sang a song.
Well, about 85% of a song. My phone announced its memory was full as I was nearing the final chorus, and shut down. Luckily, instead of in the summertime where an entire trip would have been wasted due to this (and it was, again and again and again and again*), Big Anklevich had explained to me how to empty the trashcan on my phone to free up space. I did so, deleting half a dozen photos and the video I'd just done, then set up the selfie stick again to do the song, this time going just a little bit faster.
And this was much better . . . I made it to 97% of the song before the memory was full. All it cut off was the last line of the last chorus. And that's how it'll have to go out. I'll stick a still picture or something there and redo that bit, I dunno--I won't get to it until May or so.
My song done (or mostly done), I put my phone away and turned back, still wanting to see what the waterfall looked like in January. Like I had feared, going down was much harder than going up, and as slow as I went, it didn't save me.
One of the four times I slipped was on the decline coming back from my song, and I not only landed hard on my butt, but I slid down another ten feet or so in a sitting position. The positive to that was that nobody saw me fall, but that too could've been bad, had I slid all the way off the trail and down the mountain (although I'd have hit or caught a tree, preventing me from really getting hurt).
There's a little stream that goes alongside the hiking trail, and it was not only frozen over, but the ice was six or seven inches thick, which is more than enough to hold a person's weight. Right before you get to the main falls, there's a secondary, smaller waterfall up on the mountain, and this one was completely frozen over. It looked pretty amazing:
I took two pictures of it (despite having to delete other, older pictures to make room for it), because I discovered that there were people climbing up the side, using picks and climbing gear. Crazy people.
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| That yellow splotch is a person! |
I trudged over to the main falls, and found . . . nobody there. I can't really explain it, since there were so many people on the trail and so many people congregating around the frozen falls (taking pictures of the suicidal dudes on the ice, or selfies of themselves) . . . but nobody at the destination. I went out on the ice and took a couple of pictures.
Oh, and I ruined this picture here:
While I was standing there, a young couple showed up and took pictures of each other, making me feel all sad and unattractive. I headed home after that, taking the wider path, and slipping and sliding all around it. There were so many other people also on the trail, some intentionally sliding as though ice skating, and I didn't see a single other person fall, or even stumble. It was just me.
But hey, I got a hike in, and it was cool to look at and be around. Hopefully, you'll get out and enjoy nature a day or two this month.
Sit-ups Today: 200
Sit-ups In January: 2064
Push-ups Today: 123
Push-ups In January: 1513
Words Today: 747
Words In January: 11,945
*No exaggeration: we'd be on Serenade 80 or so if not for those wasted weeks.
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