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Reminiscences from Tassajara today from the archive, accompanied by another photo that makes me feel peaceful just to look at it. The stand of trees in the foreground is called Starlight meadow, and can be find right where the lower Horse Pasture trail meets Willow Creek. To take this picture, I had crossed Willow Creek, presumably on the way to the Horsebridge and Arroyo Seco, and was looking all the way back up the Horse Pasture trail.

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A more light-hearted post for today as we enter the final stretch of vacation auto-posting. All being well, this should appear on Memorial Day, and I should be in Paris...
This picture has very relaxing connotations for me, as it is down the creek right before the second Narrows, where I used to regularly hike on my days off in the summer to get some quiet sunning and swimming in.
 

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I was interested to read this post again, more than a year after it was written.
More on the creek theme for the photograph, albeit much more colourful than the last. I called this picture May Greens, as the new leaves were so sumptuous, though I can imagine the creek was not so warm to be hiking in, as I undoubtedly was to get this picture some way down below the Narrows.

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Just in case any of you are missing Study Hall, here is an entry from 2010.
Another trail running photo, and if you are sharp-eyed, you will notice Brian ahead of me in the undergrowth. This may have even been the same run, since this is the upper part of Willow Creek, near the Horse Camp, where the trail sticks close to the water, and we are about to come to the far end of the Tony Trail for the long climb back home.

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Rewinding the clock twelve months or so, here is another aspect of the ino's life.
Pictorially, we are still in the Tassajara Trails folder, but on slightly firmer ground than yesterday - as you can see from the picture, I do mean slightly firmer. When I was just back at Tassajara, I kept hearing what a great state the Tony Trail was in, all the way up and most of the way down the other side. It was transformed greatly by the fire, and I didn't get to see how the regrowth was this year, but the trail itself was always fairly narrow and precarious. Brian and I ran it fairly regularly, and this was one of the sections that required more mindfulness, and just plain trust that you would not lose your footing on the leaves and loose silt.

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Getting people to stay in the zendo for kinhin is a constant struggle for the ino and the tanto; we have been discussing it again recently, and I brought it up at the residents' meeting before I left. Here are my related thoughts from a couple of years ago.
Today's photo combines the themes of the previous few - wildlife and the creek at Tassajara. I was always happy to find a newt, either in or out of the water. This one was particularly happy to be doing whatever it is that newts do. It's not exactly a YouTube kitten video, but still very cute.

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Today's read is from about eighteen months ago, but I find I still refer to some of the ideas I brought up there. The photo is of the Tassajara creek, way downstream from the Narrows, almost at the point where it flows into Willow Creek. There are some spectacular spots along the way. On this occasion I think I was hiking back from Arroyo Seco and the Horsebridge, and the creek was the nicest, if not the quickest, way to get back.

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Heading back just about a year, to something written during my last vacation, for today's archival offering.
More Tassajara wildlife, though of the less threatening variety. This is a checkerspot butterfly, one of the many kinds to be seen in the mountains, and not the most common; this one was out on the Tony Trail.