Fall foliage was beautiful at Paradise today.
We arrived very early to beat the crowds. We pulled in around 6AM, and started hiking around 6:30. It was cold and we could tell things were frosty - I think our car thermometer read right around 32 when we pulled in. Our effort today was to hike some sections of Paradise trails that we hadn’t covered before so we made up our own kind of route.
We started up the staircase and headed uphill. The initial uphill is steep leaving the parking lot. I was surprised how steep it was, given that I remember seeing Alta Vista listed as one of the easier trails at Paradise. We took a right at the Alta Vista trail, which very soon gets even steeper. Almost all of it is paved, except two small sections. There were a few sections that were pretty icy pavement and also steep - we almost turned around but were able to very carefully step around the ice. There are a couple different places along the Alta Vista loop with benches and great views of the mountain. We took our time, taking in the views and the sunrise along the way.
We made our way to the top of Alta Vista and back around the loop. By the time we were coming down the steep part, most of the ice was melted but still a few slick spots.
We made our way over to Myrtle Falls (always beautiful) and back to our car. We were done hiking around 10:15, and as we got back to our car I saw a parks employee pull out a Parking Full sign. As we drove down, clouds were rolling in. The Ashford entrance to the park had a line of cars at least half a mile long when we were leaving (around 11AM).
Comments