I went with my family up to spend time at Deep Creek near DCHS yesterday. On our hike down into the canyon I saw a big yellow flower, first flower I've seen this year. The smaller plants are starting to grow quickly and on the tree branches the leaves are just barely starting to pop out too. Forgot to mention that a few weeks ago after the rains I ran across some prints of a large animal in the fresh mud along the creek not too far from DCHS. I would say from its size and shape that it was from a mountain lion. I know there are bobcats in the area but they are rather small and this print was bigger than the palm of my hand. It was a wonderful warm day down along the creek and I got in the creek about waist deep and splashed myself with the still cold waters. I'm looking forward to the new season of enjoying swimming at Deep Creek. Late in the day some mosquitos were out. We hiked back out of the canyon, passing through DCHS specifically and found quite a few people there and more on the trail out. It looked like it had been pretty busy down there that day. The creek is up a bit from the warmer days melting snow in the high country. The creek crossing from beach to Crab Cooker area is still easy with clean sand on the bottom. The creek is warming up a bit which makes the crossing less of a shock. Hopefully well get some additional rains so we get lots of flowers in the near future :-)
