A sunset hike

Today we took advantage of our day off to go on a sunset hike. (Now that the sun sets around 4:45, you have to really plan a day around this kind of thing.). Before we even got to the trail, we'd had a good dose of nature:


And then we headed up the mountain. The best place to see the sunset at camp is from a place called Upper Meadow. As the name conveniently implies, it's the highest point in camp, and the trail that takes you there is a great tour of the land. These days, that land looks a little bit different, since, as many of you know, there was a fairly devastating fire here in September 2007.

Though it looks a bit haunted, in many ways fire is healthy for land,
and the scorched landscape actually provides great learning opportunities for kids.

The fire was started by some trespassers and their campfire in front of a mine below the trail to Upper Meadow. It mostly spread downhill from there, so there's no sign of anything fire damaged once you get to Upper Meadow.




In fact, an unforeseen benefit of the fire is that – now that all those pesky trees are out of the way – you can see the sunrise from the same spot. So that's next. If only sunrises didn't require us to be, you know, up before the sun.