Three weeks goes by frighteningly fast. The weather has been consistently in the 50's or even 60's and not freezing many nights but the snowpack is still far down the mountain. It shows how used to dry winters I've become to remark on this during the month of March which is still pretty much traditionally in the grip of winter around here. But, the snow is melting...in between snow storms. The storms come, they lay some snow down, but it doesn't stay long, and the melt from the new stuff only slushes the old stuff that much faster.
Yesterday was Saturday and I had lots to do, including four hours of church meetings so I took off in the morning for my typical hike up Beus Canyon and onto the shorline trail. It's mostly bare now, there's a hundred yards or so in the canyon where the trail is still plastered, and there's a big area on the mountainside that had deep, deep snow last month, but the trail is peeking out there too. Another week or so in the upper 50's and I'll just be hopping drifts.
It's great to see the dirt again; even if it's mud. I have gaiters to keep it off my pants and the mud only persists for a day or so after the snow melts, then the trail is firm and fast.
