A Thursday Outing

We have been wanting to get out and hike before the weather changed so we decided to hike at Opal Creek.  Truthfully, I have been on so many wonderful trails that Opal Creek was not as impressive as its popularity would imply.  I had pinned a number of photographs from pinterest thinking I would see some spectacular water scenes but perhaps we didn't hike up far enough or explore the creek shore enough.  But, any hike, under the trees, in the fresh air, with my family, is time well spent!

This was a beautiful spot, deep in the shade, where a little creek flowed through the tree roots.  



The ferns bronzing up as they get ready to die back for winter.

Illuminated moss

Opal Creek is a former mining operation from the depression era so there are old dilapidated buildings and equipment along the trail.  







We enjoyed looking for and photographing mushrooms along the way.  We would like to get a mushroom identification book to learn the names of the ones we found.  












The road/trail was not very near the water so we did forage a pathway down to the water's edge to at least have a look.  








Beautiful old, tall trees now protected from logging.  (Apparently, there was a big whoopdeedoo to preserve this area back in the 1980's).



Shoe mishap....not sure how this even happened LOL.

The late afternoon sun.

I love the way the light filters through the forest canopy.  



I was hoping to see some spectacular Fall foliage but there just weren't that many brilliant fall colors.  This was one of the few.

On our way home, we made a quick stop at 3 pools which took us down along the creek.




We pulled over in a rather dangerous area to catch the fading evening sun.  Beautiful!






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