Day 2 brings the promise of lighter packs and new scenery. We eat breakfast and hike further up Vallecito Trail toward Rock Pass.
We pass a giant dandelion-type poofball... old friend Salsify, root of bland repute?
This cricket was a stunning jade green color
Clovers
Another one of the many types of berries that adorned the edges of the trail. I recognized this Twinberry honeysuckle (lonicera involucrata) from the Martha Walker Native Plant Garden at Skyline Park in Napa.
Looking back toward our campsite between Mt. Irving (Left) and Thunder Mountain (Right), with Organ Mountain in the middle background.
Dad spots a curiously perched stone.
Indian Paintbrush
Campanula parryi at it again, looking casually chic in this rock-lichen outfit
Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer beauty all around us, we are forced to take momentary reprieve along the creek, hydrating and collecting our wits. A spikelet of Fireweed looks on from the forest edge.
Sprawling geraniums were common throughout our trip, seeming to vary in size and shades of pink-white. I remember thinking these two were the epitome of best friends.
Another dashing duo, monkey flower and daisy, chime in on the chorus of wildflowers in every direction.
Not the biggest. Not the juiciest. Not the sweetest. And yet somehow, the BEST raspberries I have ever eaten. Yum yum yum
Tiny bells. Unknown to me.
A passing hiker informs us of a moose resting in some foliage about half a mile up the trail on the left.
We keep an eye out for the majestic beast.
As disappointed as I was not to spot the moose, I was stunned to see these showy blue Columbines, just like the ones sold at the nursery, growing in the rugged, rocky hillsides at 10,000 ft. elevation.
We reach our turning point for the day. This creek's rocks are stained orange, unlike Vallecito Creek's rocks which are colored a chalky white, from differences in mineral runoff, we guessed.
This was one of, I believe, two species of Artemisia I saw, both with the
sage-y pungeant aroma common to the family.
Descending back towards our campsite. Thunder Mountain on the right half of the phtoto. Camp is around the bend to the left somewhere.
Oh, there it is!
A mysterious 8 ft. berm ran a straight and even course past the edge of our camp. We tried to conceptualize how it may have formed... was it by river? Glacier? How was the land leveled so evenly on it's higher side? It provided a cozy privacy from the, albeit uncrowded, trail.
As we settled in for dinner the hillside was partially illuminated by the fabled "alpine glow".
Looking north toward where we spent our day. Thunder Mountain on the left. That's the Big Dipper constellation in the sky there.
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