What work has been done in the area where I ran today (and Saturday) is a year old, if not more; I don't know if more logging is planned up there, but the sign — at a junction where I went up and to the left — remains.

Saw two interesting things along the way. Less than a mile into the run, I caught motion high in the sky and saw a great blue heron winging east, toward the mountaintop where I saw my giant mystery bird on Saturday. My memory of the bird I saw is of a bird with a wing span at least as large as a heron, but the color was wrong — mostly tan and white, whereas Herons are bluish gray. I suppose light in the woods can play tricks, but ...

Saw no vultures today, happy to report. They must have been passing through. The trail up from the sign reached a junction where state land lay off to the east, so I went that way. I wanted to limit my mileage today, so I turned around at another junction 2.5 miles up the mountain, but the exploratory options up there were plentiful. I'll be returning, I'm sure.

I didn't take exactly the same route up the mountain Saturday, but my bushwacking and meandering that day took me to a ridge line above 5,400 feet, whereas today I reached only 5,150. At that spot, I did see three elk in the trees above me. Below is a crummy picture of their butts — I have no idea why the picture (and I shot half a dozen) came out so dark.


The lighter spots near the middle of the picture, maybe a little left of the middle, are the dun-colored rear ends of two of the three elk I spotted this morning. If I pursue the trail eastward toward the ridge top, maybe I'll get closer to them — they didn't seem alarmed; just too far away for a decent picture.

And despite my vow last week to stop posting pictures of the distant valley floor, here's one more from near the top of today's run.


This would be looking straight south toward the eastern edge of Lincoln, not that you can see anything in the picture. As I said when I made the vow, these scenes always are far more impressive in person than in pictures. This is, once again, dull.

I am listening while running to a book by a guy named Smith Henderson, "Fourth of July Creek," and halfway in I am not liking it. We'll see.

5; 5; 73; 386