We took the advice of the national park service and timed our trip to Paradise for the evening, this gave us a no hassle upper parking lot space, although in general things were still busy. It was a beautiful evening and we planned to hike and enjoy the iconic view of Myrtle Falls. Unfortunately the trail down to the falls has become dangerously eroded and is now closed for the season as the park service will be working to restore it. You can still enjoy the iconic view from the lovely bridge at the top of the falls where the trail crosses the creek. We continued on heading higher into Edith Creek basin on the now Golden Gate trail. The evening light was just beautiful with fields of both Avalanche and Glacier lilies, and Pasque flowers too. Eventually we were high enough to reach the snow and being prepared with boots and poles continued on the packed boot path another quarter mile or so. Eventually the trail petered out so we stopped not wanting to damage the meadow beneath the thinning snow field. Turning back to Paradise the late evening sun was now spotlighting the Tatosh Range. Extra excitement on the return came from watching a goat grazing in the meadow and a male grouse championing his cause. Paradise was really living up to its name.
But of course as it seems these instagrammable days with so much good comes the bad. The trail immediately at the beginning of the basin is eroded beyond belief with two additional boot beaten side trails, with a third of freshly compressed flowers forming. The park service has put up crossing canes but people are just ignoring them and hiking this destroyed section anyway. And with no rangers present it was bad behavior bingo. Folks hopping the ropes to get to eroded view points, people wandering off trail deep into the flower meadows, a group picnicking on a blanket in a patch of lilies, and of course the perennial a family with pet in tow. How sad.
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