Talking About the Weather

Talking About the Weather
            If I find myself blathering on about the weather with someone, I figure it’s time to wrap up the conversation. And yet, weather can bring good things, and is worth talking about.
            I grew up in an era when my friends and I actually sang, “Rain, rain go away, come again some other day!” during long rainy stretches of our Upstate New York summers. Plenty of Adirondack camping trips in my youth were spent trudging around under a rain poncho. After a week of only bathing in cold lake water, my brothers and I carried the mixed aroma of sweat, campfire smoke, and the damp-induced mold and mildew of the canvas tent fabric we slept under.
            Here in California, we often have the opposite complaint, suffering varying levels of drought for decades. During the driest stretches, the weatherman mentioning even a ten percent chance of rain was enough to get people excited, only to be disappointed again.
            Climate change has brought greater rainfall in the last couple of years, which is great for countering the drought, but it would be nice if it didn’t fall all at once. Atmospheric rivers that blast through one after another wreak havoc.
            One benefit of rainfall is that waterfalls flow again. I’ve been on many a hike in the Marin Watershed to visit waterfall sites, only to see barely a trickle, and sometimes dry creek beds.
            With greater rainfall this season and more storms on the way, I know the local waterfalls will be flowing at full blast.
            Staying warm, dry and safe during the storms is a comfort, but going out after the rain to feel the freshness of the air and see the bright post-rain colors is always uplifting. Check out a local waterfall if you can. Keep putting one foot forward, whatever the weather!
            This week’s HikingAutism Hike Notes from the archives is Tucker Trail, featuring the Tucker Trail and Tucker Cutoff Trail in the Marin Watershed. These trails offer special pleasures of their own, but also connect to the wonderful Bill Williams Trail and Eldridge Grade (see Bill Williams-Tucker Trail Waterfall Hike and Eldridge Grade-Windy Ridge Hike Notes.) These lesser traveled trails offer some of the best treats the Marin Watershed has to offer.
 
This week’s Hike Notes from the Archives:
(Original Hike Notes 117): Tucker Trail
 
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