This was the last Crab Creek hike of the season.
My favorite secluded mountain watering hole has a very short season. Fall starts early at the creek and the second week in August brings cool mountain breezes and the water temperature dips over night.
We made one more trip down to Crab Creek last week; just one day of hiking in our three day mountain adventure weekend. In this time we hiked something like twelve miles and ran about eight miles of mountain trails. Not a bad work out for a weekend where we ate nothing but pizza, bread knots and coffee ice cream cake.
It was a fun weekend in the mountains.
The great thing about the hike to Crab Creek so late in the season was that the weather was a lot cooler than I was used to. This hike starts at a low elevation, about four thousand feet and dips lower almost to the high desert well below 2,500 feet. It gets hot in the summer time (That makes the creek waters super refreshing in July) On this August day we lucked out and the temperature was only about eighty on the switch backs descending to the chilly waters of the creek.
We got a late start on the day. ( I made Sweet Potato Waffles with Cream Cheese Frosting and fresh pressed Grapefruit Ginger Juice; that took a while) We made our way down by the creek just about lunch time and had a awesome little picnic on the granite rocks (complete with margaritas!) Before swimming all afternoon.
Grapefruit Ginger Juice
3 Ruby Red grapefruits
1 quarter size chunk of ginger
2 cups spinach
Cut most of the skin off the grapefruits.
Juice the grapefruits, ginger and spinach.
Let chill in the freezer for twenty minutes.
