Alpine Autumn

It is truly becoming autumn here. Our time in the alpine zone last weekend might be the last camping up there for this year.

During one of my mountain bike rides over the weekend, I was high above our campsite, and I spotted the white LabMobile far below me. Do you see it?

I love the LabMobile. It's made it possible for me to camp all over the west despite the fact that my fragile spine can't handle sleeping in a tent. We thought about bringing our mobile camp up even higher - we might do that next time!

I enjoyed glorious bike rides with Shyla. We were above treeline so we weren't inside the golden aspen groves but, rather, we looked down on them.

Shyla seemed to energized by the boulders and the wide open spaces. She ran like the wind.

Some hunting seasons are underway - mostly birds and large game archery - so we weren't bedecked in all of our orange garb yet (we save that stuff for the large game rifle seasons). However, I have to admit that I am not comfortable with our dogs being anywhere near people toting what look like big guns to me. I've written in the past about our first dog who was murdered by a crazy man with a gun. The man was prosecuted and paid a price (but no price could match taking a life, in my opinion).

However, the legal system's punishment didn't heal my psyche, which still fears for the lives of my precious furry friends around guns - even when the people carrying them seem very responsible. I can't help it even though our horrific loss occurred a long time ago.

So, I kept Shyla quite close to me, curtailing her high speed running a little bit. Even on a bike, I'm slower than Shyla at full speed so she has to rein in her enthusiasm to stay next to me.

Although autumn was taking over the aspen groves, a few summer flowers hung on. "Old Man of the Mountain" flowers still bloomed.

And, in the shelter of the remnants of a mining cabin, fireweed glowed gloriously. It even had buds that hadn't opened yet!

However, there is no doubt that this alpine area will get its first big snowfall before too long. I was grateful to be there to enjoy it once more, before it becomes a high mountain winter wonderland.