Gold Cord Lake

 I was feeling so restless, not hiking today. My right knee is still hurting, but not nearly as badly as a couple of days ago. I also wanted to see if there were good fall colors up in the Hatcher Pass area. I was disappointed to see that most of the trees up there have either lost their leaves or have just turned brown without displaying the golden color characteristic of this season. The snow level is still pretty high up there and the gates over the pass and up to the mine are still open. I decided to just drive up to the mine and see how my knee feels trying to hike up to Gold Cord Lake. I took it slowly of course, but I found it really didn't seem to make the pain any worse. Honestly, it feels about the same as it did last week before the marathon. I think any stiffness from the marathon itself has dissipated but the bruising from the fall a few weeks ago still hasn't completely healed. I'm not ready to attempt a long hard climb yet, but this short 2-mile round trip was pretty comfortable. I did need to take Bella off her leash on the way down through the rocks and mud, so she didn't pull me off my feet and cause a new injury. She took off racing down the trail but did come back when I called her. She felt the need to go down and greet a lady who was far down the trail. Once she got the necessary pets from her, she was willing to come back up to me. Bella is a total muddy mess and will be going directly into the kitchen sink for a bath as soon as we walk into the front door. My knee feels pretty good right now.

The creek was barely flowing and there was a little ice here and there along the muddy trail. Up at the lake it was starting to snow so we didn't stay long.

Muddy muddy Bella