A Little Too Early for Aspens

9 Oct 09: Returning to Carson Pass and heading down into Hope Valley, I had expected to find that last weekend's snow had knocked the aspen leaves to the ground. Hah! I was more than surprised to find that not only were the leaves still in place, the actual color change hadn't really started in any big way.

The scene shown here was from Hope Valley, typically where the local aspen color starts looking its best. It was a nice bright day with temps around 65°, so actually it felt more like early September. In some ways I was disappointed that it wasn't more autumnal, but I had a beautiful drive, returning via Luther Pass to Hwy 50. It was pretty nice to see some decent color down around the slide area near the St. Pauli Inn, so all in all, a great day.

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First Local Snow of 2009

3 October 09: A somewhat surprising Saturday with a decent first snowfall in the local mountains. I headed up Iron Mountain Road with a hope of getting to Carson Pass for some pictures of Round Top with snow.

It wasn't to be. I didn't even get to Leek Springs before the road was too slushy for me to feel comfortable in my little car with no snow tires.

I turned back, but stopped at a lower elevation to get a few pictures of the morning weather.

Does Anyone Want to Discuss Nature?

My particular interest is learning about native plants, but most any part of Nature that I see while wandering will also catch my interest. In the past two years I have added butterflies to my list of reasons to head out with my camera, and I have had some success in finding a number of local species.

With learning to recognize plant families, I have also had some fun helping others with identifying interesting plants that they ask about. Mostly flowers, but sometimes a tree or shrub, as long as a photo shows a reasonable amount of specific characteristics, it is often possible to put them into a correct family, and with a little Google searching for a geographic area, sometimes a good guess at a species.

So I'm hoping to turn this snoozer of a "discussion" area into a place where anyone can comment or ask about native plants (distinguished from nursury plants), bugs and butterflies (moths too!), or critters of the forest. Post a photo. Ask a question. California topics are what I would hope for but the West in general is acceptable.

To pump this up I will now start using this as a travel blog, adding reports from any day trip I make to go see what's happening in the local Sierra.