Tag: Jacksonville Forest Park

As of today, and despite a snow dump earlier and a few passing storms more recently, our water year precipitation is still 26% below normal (a term I now use with caution). We’d need almost 10 inches (254 mm) of rain by April 1st to make up the difference and end the drought. Even The LovedOne – a classic glass half full optimist – is becoming reconciled to that (short of an extremely wayward hurricane) not happening. After all, you need something to fill that glass with. We’re bracing for a long, hot, dry summer… 😰

We were down here three years before we did our first hike in Jacksonville Forest Park. Maybe because there were so many other “bigger” hikes to do first. Maybe because we were being hiking snobs – as in: it’s just a “local” park with “short” hikes. 🙄 Well, that first hike soon blossomed into a love affair 🥰 with this little park which sees us going back there many times a year in all seasons. The trails always go to the same places but the scenery constantly changes. Water flows (or not), leaves flourish or fall, wildflowers appear, mushrooms erupt or rot, views are there (or not), critters come and go. It has become a place of both wonder and refuge. To say it has been an godsend during the recent plague years would be a vast understatement.

We have a few higher altitude hikes planned for before (hopefully) the snow flies. But we have other plans for next week that we don’t want to mess-up by doing a face-plant on some remote trail. So back to Jacksonville Forest Park for the first time since our smoke-challenged August. This is another quiet time in the forest – no wildflowers, few mushrooms, just a trickle in Jackson Creek (and even that is amazing considering the drought). Fall colors are starting. Some trees have already shared their leaves with the trail, while most of those on the big-leaf maples are still hanging on. But the inexorable march of the seasons will soon, so soon, strew the trail with their leaves too.

Days of smoke. Days of smoke. One of our local TV weather people, who (being from the traditional always put a happy face on the weather school of forecasting) has, for weeks, only mentioned smoke in passing. This week they finally caved and got a set of smoke symbols for their nightly forecast. ☁ That’s how bad things have become. Wildfire smoke will likely plague our valley until either rain kills the fires raging north and south of us or there are no forests left to burn. 😥

Well, this year’s trifecta of oppressive heat, foul smoke, and destructive conflagration got off to an early, and strong, start. Air temperatures over 100°F (37°C) in late May and onward from there. And it looks like this trifecta is going to be with us for awhile. 😢 If we want a shot at hiking in clearer air and cooler temperatures, we’ll have to go high and hope that the ever shifting winds don’t push smoke at us.

We did our hike of Tom Spring Mountain just five days ago. The temperature then was warm (80°F / 26.6°C) but manageable. Today it’s headed to 104°F (40°C); if it makes it that far, it’ll break a record set in 1924. Great weather for worrying about wildfires – we’ve had several so far but none (thankfully) very big. Not great weather for hiking. Seems a bit much for the first of June, but the weather is officially warmer these days. Still, we figured with an early start and a judicious choice of the shadier trails, we could get in a short hike before our brains fried. So, on to the Forest. 🙂