The Fallen

 Everything's fallin', including the leaves.

Visit #1274, Sunday 25 October 20, 6:45-9:30AM, 3.1 miles, 5.4lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 40's, partly sunny.

The sun hadn't even cracked the eastern hills when I started today's journey. Yes; it was dark. And I was on a special mission. I thought by starting in the dark I wouldn't disturb anyone with my chainsaw, expecting the park to be empty. I was wrong.

I was on-call this week, and semi-tethered to my vehicle in case a service call popped up. But I wanted to remove a fallen tree branch on a trail, very close to the road, up near Castle Craig. I thought if I beat the sunrise and drove up to the spot, I'd also beat the early morning walkers and such. But instead, there were people braving the dark, wearing headlamps and reflective clothing, walking along the road. I even encountered a bicycle rider, all before there was enough daylight to see.

I reached the branch, which was conveniently close to the road.

Almost done.

Done, and the sun is finally showing its bald head.

I drove the short distance to Castle Craig to tend to some minor graffiti I spotted last week on the klieg lights.

I know it's small, but give an inch and they'll eventually take a mile. This was on the inside of the housing. Sandpaper wasn't working that well, so I spray painted over it.

The gray paint matched up well to graffiti on the outside of the housings.

I covered a few other spots and as I was driving away it dawned on my addled brain that I had the time and resources to clean up the parking lot and surrounding area, and I could drive away with the bag of litter, unlike last week. So I turned around and did just that.

Afterwards, I drove down the road and with the chainsaw handy, tended to some unsightly branches on the roadside. Here a just a couple examples:

And this one.

You can see by the number of people in the photo that the road saw quite a bit of pedestrian activity, even at 8AM.

I returned to the parking lot and hiked the trails on the south side of I-691, picking up litter and trimming thorn bushes drooping into the trail.

Next Sunday will be November 1st, and the road to Castle Craig and West Peak will be closed for the season. If the foliage holds up, it will be a scenic, traffic-free walk on the road so get out there if the opportunity presents itself!