New River Hike

We woke Wednesday morning to a damp world. By noon the sky was starting to clear, so we decided to hike the New River trail I had found in a list of hikes on the web.

The start of the trail was quite inviting.

We followed the path into a beautiful green woods. I was very happy the trail was not  soft sand.  I had had enough of that on the beach.

The forest had quite a mix of trees. The colorful madrones contrasted with the lush greens.

This tree seemed to fascinate Craig.

In places it felt like autumn with many leaves on the ground.

After awhile we came to a short spur to the New River. By this time the sky was very blue with just some white clouds here and there. The sky reflection made the river water look blue.

Back on the main trail, the path became more and more sandy. We were happy to see a few benches along the way. I asked Craig if we got extra points for walking in the sand!  [From Craig: I told her that the miles counted double.]

 

We came out of the wooded area to a part of the path that overlooked a large, rough dune.

Following what we thought were footprints, we walked down along what seemed to be the trail.

It was not.

The footprints ended, as we started out across the open area looking for more. I wondered how such a civilized trail had turned into an unmarked old dune.

Obviously this was not right, so we turned back, retracing our steps to the last place we knew we were on the trail.

And sure enough, we spotted the pretty obvious logs that indicated which way the trail went!

We were soon back on the trail and into another wooded area, which took us toward the end of our hike.

The total loop was 2.4 miles.

I would like to come back and do it again at the end of the month to see if it feels easier. For now it was just about right!

Once again I needed to lie down when we got back to the Alfa. This kind of "tired" feels good!

Like life...