Things Seen on the Weiser River Trail in Glendale, October 19th

Eberle & I took a walk on the Weiser River trail in the Fruitvale-Glendale area on Sunday afternoon—from Starky’s hot springs north, well past mile marker 70. As those who live around here know, Sunday was a truly gorgeous autumn day. These are some of the things we saw along the way.

• The old rail bridge leading north up the Weiser River Trail, with the bridge on the Fruitvale-Glendale road bearing off to the left a short distance away at an acute angle
• The Weiser River
• Birches in brilliant yellow autumn foliage amongst the pines
• Ferns
• Lichen, both in the trail & encrusting the pines
• Mossy rocks
• 2 Stellar’s Jays
• 1 Magpie
• 2 Flickers
• 1 Robin, which later re-appeared in a dream I dreamt Sunday night
• A large rusted washer (the kind used to fasten bolts, not the kind used to launder clothes)
• Chokecherries (with leaves turning orange red), growing on both sides of the trail but especially the west
• Chokecherry pits
• Cowpies
• Hay
• PIN line mile marker 70 fashioned from railroad spikes
• Yellow leaves floating in the current of the Weiser River, with the yellow birch leaves above the river reflected in the water
• Rusted metal panels from an abandoned automobile
• Metal fence posts draped with broken barbed wire
• A split rail fence in which some of the rails had fallen askew
• Fresh reddish brown pine cones strewn along the trail
• Old grayish white pine cones strewn along the trail
• A shrub with red leaves that had caught a number of falling pine needles; these hung on the shrub's limbs like tinsel on a Xmas tree
• A tall dead pine that had been completely girdled
• A grayish dead tree fallen into the Weiser River
• Three cars driving on the Fruitvale-Glendale Road, above us & off to the west
• A large log house with a green tin roof off to the northwest
• An elderberry tree, with its purplish berries
• Pine needles scattered across the trail
• One section of trail about 10 feet across thickly strewn with yellow birch leaves
• A man & a woman bicycling, first headed south & then later headed north
• Various boulders along the edge of the trail
• A section of trail rutted by heavy equipment, which apparently had been used to clean up a mud & rockslide
• Bicycle tracks
• Horse hoofprints
• Cow hoofprints
• Dog pawprints
• Footprints
• Red outbuildings at Starkey’s hot springs (a private hot springs)
• The gray stone greenhouse at Starkey’s hot springs
• A sign saying “¼”
• A sign saying “X”
• The green gates at both the south & north trail heads of the Weiser River trail coming off the Fruitvale-Glendale Road
• Each other