Craigie Creek Trail

 The trees are barely starting to turn gold here at home. So, I decided to drive up to Hatcher Pass and see if they are looking any better up there. I did see that most of the leaves are still green or have been blown off by the wind, which was a bit disappointing. It was very foggy and rainy down below but was mostly sunny up in the mountains. I continued up to Summit Lake then over the pass, thinking it might be more colorful on the Willow side of the pass. The trees are starting to turn on that side, but still not nearly close to peak foliage. I stopped at the Craigie Creek Trail and took a nice 4-mile round trip hike up the trail. That is a very rough ATV trail with huge rocks and gigantic puddles to negotiate. But Bella and I found our way around most of the puddles. She did just run through many of them, but I found my way through brush along their banks and didn't get my feet wet. We did have to move over a couple of times to let ATVs go by. But for the most part, we had the entire trail to ourselves. It's pretty desolate out there so I didn't plan to go very far. I turned around at 2 miles. I found one lovely little pond, and a few golden trees and golden bushes. The hillsides are colorful but it's still not quite full fall colors. It was a very pleasant little hike though. Bella seemed to enjoy it, especially when she got to chase a couple of ground squirrels. After we got back to the car, I drove the rest of the road down to Willow then on to home. There are some beautiful golden aspen trees along the way. But it will likely be another week or 2 before all the trees are autumn gold.