I finagled my way to a business trip to Seattle, and got to spend a bit of the weekend with my folks. The answer to the question “what do you want to do” is pretty much always “head up to the mountain”. Yesterday it rained nearly four inches in 24 hours – which is a lot. So the thing about mountains is that they’re pretty far away and hard to see when there’s a bunch of water between you and the mountains. But we headed up anyway.
The colors out here are glorious. The East Coast is suffering one of the most drab autumns I’ve ever seen – I’m not sure if the leaves are going to change colors at all or just fall off. But I don’t remember the leaves out west. I think this might be the first time in 20 years I’ve been in Mineral in October and the colors! They’re amazing! So mom and I drove up to Paradise today, where it snowed. We went part way up the West Side Road, but it was washed out prior to the closure. The passes were closed, so we couldn’t go through. Then we went Skate Creek, which had the most phenomenal colors but also had a minor road washout. We didn’t have the clearance to make it, so we turned around and got the colors a second glorious time. On our way back we heard Highway 7 was also closed due to a slide, but we couldn’t get up to see it.
Right now, there is only one bridge you can use to get out of Mineral. Happily, it’s a pretty tall one and also in the direction I need to go. The mountains are so beautiful, and the colors are so glorious. But we forgot how tenuous our connections can really be.
You can see all my pictures here. The colors were far, far more vibrant than my poor phone could capture!
My Truant Pen 