This wasn’t my favorite hike for a couple of reasons. First of all, there was a boneyard of trees…so sad!  It was nice to see the regeneration of plants starting in the first boneyard.  There were large patches of yellow, California fuchsia, a tad of Indian paintbrush,  tiny dainty pink flowers  and a few manzanitas starting to grow. The second boneyard was bare from the more recent gender reveal fire. It was a steady grind up with a few flat areas on the way up. My favorite part was being above the clouds, seeing the trees near the top and the beautiful views. I loved hearing the birds in a few areas and enjoyed the weather which wasn’t too hot or cool.

The trek down started out okay until I got separated from my hiking partner after checking out the “Washington Monument.”  It would have been okay if I hadn’t slipped going down the trail and injured my knee.  I had an ace bandage and wrapped it but it was slow going after that.  The 7 miles back weren’t much fun especially the first 3 miles or so solo. I was happy to see my hiking partner trekking back up the trail with another hiker after that. The best part besides being reunited was seeing 3 deer later as we neared the car. I felt blessed to make it back to the car safely before dusk.

By the way, the road after the fire station wasn’t so great but fortunately my Toyota Corolla was able to maneuver around the rocks okay.