All Der Leaves

Day 23: All der leaves have fallen...cottonwood, maple, willow, cascara, an errant oak, and yes, alder leaves, all have fallen and lie on the old road/trail to the Nisqually-Ohop Creek confluence in a blanket of mottled brown. Unlike a normal Pacific Northwest autumn when they'd be wet, slick, gooey and a serious hazard to your health on several different levels, this year they are dry and crunchy and make a wonderfully satisfying sound as you shuffle through them. I needed to get out today without too much physical challenge, so I chose this easy trail in Nisqually State Park which runs something between a mile and a half to two miles from parking before it dead-ends at the water. The elevation loss is minimal, maybe a couple hundred feet, and on such a gentle slope that you don't really notice until you start climbing back up. There's not a lot to see along the way other than Usnea-covered branches and in season the occasional mushroom, but it's a pretty walk and can be taken as leisurely or as vigorously as one might wish. I loafed my way down today, ambled back in no particular rush, stopping to look at lichens, enjoying the sound of the river, searching for a woodpecker drumming on a tree somewhere out of sight, and surprising a coyote who went bounding off into the forest in a crackle and crunch of leaves, affronted by a human in his personal domain.