Hiking On Cedar Mountain 2

Continuing on a theme, here is part 2 of my leisure weekend hike up Cedar Mountain.

On this part of the hike I decided to explore a bit of the ridge. Photo's 2 and 3 were taken from a rocky outcrop that gave me the willies while I was hiking up (diagonally) and while I was hiking down (also diagonally, which was very dangerous). In the remaining pics, you can see worn out paths that although were great for walking on, did provide a few places along the way for me to sit and proverbially smell the flowers, or in the case, the trees and the birds. You can also that autumn is indeed taking place on Cedar Mountain.

And while the grade was roughly 7% or more in some places, the downward trek on those paths made it feel like I was walking down a slightly steep hill. So overall to this point, the hike was going very well.

Hiking On Cedar Mountain

Recently I went for a hike up Cedar Mountain and took roughly 20 pics and one video while spending an hour tramping around the mountain. I thought now would be a good time as any to resurrect this blog and share one of my favorite places to get lost within myself. So without further ado, here is Cedar Mountain.

 

 

These pics were taken within the first fifteen minutes of my hike. The first one shows the entrance to Cedar Mountain, which located directly across from the end of my street. The remaining six were taken at various points while I was hiking up the initial 8-9% incline (it eventually grew to about a 11% or so incline the further up I went), either facing towards the street or off to my right as I faced the mountain.

 

Even though the temps were in the hi 60's/lo 70's outside, once I got about ten feet inside the mountain the temp dropped roughly five degrees. The higher I went the chillier it got as even though the sun poked its head through (as you can see in some of those pics), the ratio of shade to sun was about 4 to 1 in favor of the shade.

 

As you can see, autumn hasn't quite taken hold in the mountain yet, but in the coming weeks, maybe it has.

Alive Is The Neighborhood 3

Yeah, it's time for another photo montage, but this time, I though I would be extremely different by throwing a few captions in for everyone to read.

Background: I was outside desperately trying to get some writing done, when I decided to take break by shooting a few (well, about two dozen) pictures. The first 17 you saw in two previous posts, and the remaining six are here (one was a no-go).

Pic #1 features, as you can plainly see, flags waving in the breeze. We have about a half dozen flags lining this side of the driveway and not only are they purty, but they double as line guide for my brother in law (his now temporarily deceased car is what you see in the pic).

The reason why I was able to get this and the other bird shots was that I had chair parked directly under the tree in the front yard, thus making it super simple for me to get this nifty shot. Sorry, don't know what kind of bird this is.

Same bird, but I still don't know what it is.

One of my better self-portraits. Yes, I really do look this on the weekend, and as you can see, I have the funkiest salt-and-pepper mustache east of the Mississippi. And yes, I started growing it even longer as I'm trying to get it to hand down freestyle off my face.

Another bird, or the same bird. Not completely sure what's what or who's who.

While I wasn't pining for the fjords, I was laying on the ground pointing my cheesy little camera skywards. Not once....

But twice. In case you're wondering about the tree, it is still trucking along, and if you have the ability, please give some serious thought about wandering over to my adult blog to read a nifty (and super clean G-rated) story entitled simply "The Tree".