Reds Meadow

After a day greyed over by smoke blown in from a Santa Barbara brush fire, this day dawned much clearer and bluer, allowing us to get back to our training and on to one of our favorite runs -- the Reds Meadow trail. It was a welcome run after waiting for the smoke to clear yesterday and losing much of our planned workload.

I've personally traversed this trail some 15 times over the years, and the creek hopping, vista viewing, tree dodging jaunt through the woods never ceases to amaze me. It's a relatively easy six miles atop soft, single-track trail over Mammoth Pass and down the hillside into Reds Meadow. But the expanse of the Minaret Range off to the west is literally breathtaking. The woods are quiet except for the chatter of athletes, the symphony of sound breezing through the pine, and the occassional clatter of falling water.

Tradition has called for a wonderful breakfast at the Reds Meadow Cafe, so we again enjoyed all the fixins of a great breakfast, shadowed and cooled by towering Lodgepoles and Ponderosa pines.

A hike down to rainbow falls followed, again it was fun to watch the kids take a cold wade and try to be heard above the din of the falls. Though the water was lower than in past summers, the sight was breathtaking.