Granite Tors

Granite Tors


P7167777 On July 16, 2005, Kate and I headed out to the Chena Hot Springs area to do some hiking on the Granite Tors trail. We got there at a pretty decent time. Here is a photo of the parking area that is across the street from the trailhead. The Chena River goes by it, and there is a cool outcrop of granite nearby that is seen in the distance. P7167777
P7167778 While on the flatter portion of the early part of the trail (that unknowingly at the beginning is 15 mile long in a loop) we were walking by many burned out areas from the 2004 fire season. Kate points out some of the burned trees. As an aside, I tried to take my sister, Stella, out to this trail last year around the time of the fire, but luckily the road had been closed off since the fires were in the area. I did not know that the location of one of the fires was on this trail. P7167778
P7167780 One of the nearby hillsides is all charred from the fires, as Kate and I ascend an early uphill portion of the trail. P7167780
P7167781 From the previous photo's vantage point, this photo was taken looking back down the trail to the lower valley. The burned trees are all over the place. P7167781
P7167783 The first good place to see some of the granite tors that are near the trail, but still several miles down the trail. P7167783
P7167785 One of the flatter portions after the first hill. The burned out area makes it easier to see the granite tors in the distance (left side of the photo). Some of the gray clouds on the upper left side of the photo are actually turning into thunderstorm clouds. These clouds and the fact that we were running out of water (poor planning on my part) led to the hike being cut short. P7167785
P7167786 A zoom in on one of the closer granite tors. This is where we were trying to hike to before we had to turn back. P7167786
P7167787 A zoomed out photo of the previous photo with the clouds added in. P7167787
P7167788 Of course as the day went, once we got back to the parking lot where the cool outcrop of granite was the weather got better. Overall, instead of hiking the 15 mile loop, Kate and I ended up probably doing a total return trip of 6-7 miles. It was a decent day to be outside for a while, though. P7167788

This album has 9 items in total    |    Album was updated 7/21/05 10:52 PM    |    Generated by JAlbum 5.1, custom skin ExhibitPlus 1.3a


Valid XHTML 1.0! valid CSS!