A trip over Monitor Pass, up to Reno, dinner with daughter, and back to Sac.

I decided today was the day to go over Monitor Pass to see how the aspens are doing.  There are forests of them up there, and I always seem to miss them at their best, so the wife and I loaded ourselves in the Dodge, and gunned it up the hill.

It was warm and sunny at home, but on Carson Pass it was raining in a desultory fashion.  At Hope Valley just the other side of Carson Pass, it looked like this:

Past Pickett's Junction, you turn right at Woodfords and head south to the Carson River and to an area that was burned off by one of the fires earlier this year.

Here's the Carson River and the first of the fire damaged landscape.  Although it wasn't raining all that hard, the run off made the river muddy.

Typical fire damage.  A mosaic of hot, almost total burnoff, not far from a patch that made it through pretty much unscathed.  

Up at Monitor Pass, there was nothing to be seen because we were up in the clouds.  It was like driving through a thick fog.  From what we could see though, the aspens were not damaged, but were also not in their best form and color.  Perhaps the drought has tempered their show.

Coming down and out of the mountains into the Antelope Valley, a very sudden disgorgement from a deep and rugged canyon.

The choice.

We went north to Carson City and then Reno, and arranged a dinner with the youngest daughter.  Got back home at about 8:30.  It was quite the round trip, but sadly, no real opportunities for good photography!  There's always next time!