The Hottest Spot in Town

 Guess where that hotspot was.

Visit #1501, Saturday 26 October 24, 7:15-9:40AM, 4.7 miles, 43.5 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 50s, sunny and dry.

Very dry fall weather has sparked some wildfires (with human help, I'm sure), with a 100+ acre fire on Lamentation Mountain, and earlier this week, two smaller fires in Hubbard Park.

While I had a different agenda for this weekend's hike, I thought if I could smell the remnants of the Hubbard Park fires I'd gravitate toward them and take some photos. I never did so it may have to wait for another day.

I wanted to revisit some graffiti I found last week and remove or cover it if I could. See last week's post for the Before photos.

The first was the birch tree which will eventually become a black birch tree by me if the graffiti vandal doesn't stop.

Up over I-691 to this large rock. My gray spray paint covered the pink heart nicely.

I hiked up to the road splitting East/West Peak but still didn't smell any signs of fire. Maybe I'd hit paydirt walking down the road.

Reaching the north gate at Merimere Reservoir,  I found a pair of car keys held together with a paperclip, on top of the gate.

Adjacent to the keys was some graffiti. All I had on me was black paint. I may return with a better color match.

About halfway back toward the park, I found these two white trash bags discarded by the roadside. Want to know what was in them? (The third bag is mine.)

Inside EACH BAG was 20 pounds of store bought seafood and meat in their original packaging (I weighed them!) This was going to be a REAL chore carrying them.

I would carry them about 100 feet then stop to rest. "Chore" did not describe how hard this was as the bags sagged from the weight of the contents. However, the smell wasn't that bad. YET.

Along the way with my burden I found more graffiti, this time on the guardrail and this time I had a reasonable paint color match.

Thankfully, a bit further on, I was approached from behind by a couple and the woman offered to carry one of the bags. She was a real trooper, that is until the bag started to leak its juicy contents! My thanks for her efforts.

Anyway, we reached the water treatment plant where we dropped off the bags along with my litter bag.

As a post script, it seems the fall foliage has lasted longer than I predicted and you have a few more days to enjoy the colors.