Once again, I led one of my expeditions up the San Lorenzo River....
The group meets the river. As usual, click for larger images.
The view ahead.
The thing about hiking in rivers is this: it's easy to trip over a rock, fall down, and get soaked. Staying relatively dry requires great care in locomotion, which makes for slow going.
Alternatively, one can embrace the soak.
I don't think we exceeded this speed limit at any time.
The deep pool at the former Diversion Dam is another of those spots where the swimmers get through a lot faster than the waders.
Still, they'll catch up eventually.
There were a lot of crawdads around, nibbling toes and begging for scraps of tuna sandwiches.
The boulder-strewn rapids are slow going for everyone (except those who cheat by getting out and hopping from dry boulder to dry boulder).
Another embracing-the-soak situation.
Yup, the non-swimming crew is still back there.
More exciting terrain!
Another slog up the rocky rapids.
We had to exercise the full strength of our salmon powers to make our way up this mighty waterfall (click for actual-size image of waterfall).
Another obstacle in our path - but it can't stop the Salmon Hikers!
The Bay Bridge was closed this weekend, but we encountered this Oak Bridge, which appeared to be in good order.
This is practically the last obstacle downstream of the Garden of Eden. Promise!
We finally returned to the carpool point just about 6:00... which, allowing for 2 hours round-trip driving, 15 minutes getting organized, 15 minutes for lunch, and half an hour walking along the railroad tracks, means we must have spent five hours hiking two miles upriver.
It's now evening of the day after, and my legs are finally getting unsore.
Maybe I should do a Samhain hike! ...Aw, but Samhain comes on a Wednesday this year.
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