Fourth of July Hike, 2008 Edition

Like last year, the plan for the first part of the Fourth was just to get outside. Didn't feel like ranging far, so headed up into the mountains to the Chamisa Trail. We'd done that hike before on a major holiday, and, as it turns out, I think I was kind of conflating that trail with another.

The past couple weeks, every afternoon it's been getting gray and windy and stormy-looking, but there hasn't been much in the way of precipitation. At least in town. Apparently, the mountains and east have gotten fairly consistent rain. We were out in the morning, and figured we'd beat anything that was coming; in any event, the trail offers a couple options for a shorter route.

The clouds rolled in, and there was thunder, but it still didn't seem too threatening. And the cloud cover was welcome.



Trail goes up, pretty steeply at first, into the woods. It kind of ends, about an hour up, at the intersection of several trails. We'd previously done the down and back that leads to a nice field, but looking at the sky, were wondering if that was the best idea.



Then we ran across one of my co-workers and his dogs. Sat on a log and visited for a while. And then all decided to head back to the trailhead, via the lower route that gets more meadow-y.



It did wind up raining early in the afternoon — even here in town. Nothing to compare to the half-hour hail and drenching we got yesterday, but still.

But it was clear enough by dinner time to grill some burgers. After dark, we got out the ladder and climbed up onto the roof to see if we could catch any fireworks, but the trees were blocking the city's display at the high school. We saw a few unofficial ones, but got back down when it started to rain a bit more. Next year, we'll try going up to the ridge by the dog park.

Update: Turns out that wasn't the town's fireworks we were barely seeing through the trees; those wound up starting later.