I tried to get out early to beat the heat but I'm just not a morning person so 8 AM Was the best I could do (not good enough because it was HOT out there).
It did remind me of a helpful hint about hiking in hot weather (besides bring plenty of water and try to get out either in the early AM or the last of the light in the PM). The hint is this, if you are hiking a loop and you are familiar with the trail think about which end of the loop has more shade. If there is a difference do the loop so that shady part is the return leg. It's not much but the more shade you can be in as the day heats up the better..
The hike I did today was in the Sierra Azul OSP at the Mt. Umunhum area (still have look that up to spell it correctly!). I have only hiked this route once before and, in keeping with my shade hint above, did it in the opposite direction From my previous hike. This caused me to at one point have a little trouble finding one of the trail junctions. I will post the details on the hike web page but basically I ended up on an unofficial trail that was extremely overgrown and may have encountered a bit of poisin oak. I really hope not or that at least the quadruple wash down I gave myself when I got home did the trick.
That was kind of the low point of the hike. The high point was that at one spot I found myself in the middle of a swarm of maybe 10 or 15 little 1/2 to ¾ inch butterflies for about 20 or 30 seconds. Pretty cool.
Anyway see you on the trail.
bc