Station Fire

I tried to sleep in this morning to catch up from lack of sleep at the wedding, but 7:30 was as far as I got. The sun was too bright and there were too many cars driving by so I got on the trail at 8:30.

I’ve been in the Station Fire burn area, a fire that burned for two months in 2009. The Trail Gorillas, a trail maintenance group, just finished clearing all the poodle dog bush off the trail this season so that a detour is no longer necessary. Poodle dog bush grows after a fire for about ten years and its roots help keep the soil in place.

There was still plenty of PDB around, but only some of it was encroaching on the trail. It was easily stepped around if paying attention though. Only in one spot did I have to leave the trail to avoid it, but that was also easy.

It was fairly cool today, and I was walking in the clouds for part of it. I did 17.6 miles to the North Fork Ranger Station. I felt a little slow after all my time off but I could have gone farther. I am going to try to get some more extra sleep in tonight though.