About a half mile up the canyon I saw something in the road that seemed quite large. At first I thought it was a cat, but it ended up being a raccoon. It was just laying there in the middle of the road and I imagine it was hit by a car and not ran over because there really wasn't any carnage or insides strewn throughout. I thought, "that black line across their face is pretty cool"...than I had to swerve out of the way of a truck flying down the mountain. At that point it crossed my mind that because it was later in the evening and the sun would be setting as I was going to be finishing, I should be extra cautious. The drivers going up the mountain would have the sun directly in their eyes and could not see me due to the glare and I didn't want to join the raccoon. The rest of the roadkill was carnage, with bits and pieces, swarms of flies and chunks of meat on the roadway. I saw a couple snakes that had been completely flattened. A couple squirrels, a field mouse, chipmunk and a bird. I was surprised at how much roadkill there was and wondered what happened to increase the carnage. I also had to note where the larger pieces of roadkill was so that on my return trip back down the mountain I wouldn't hit it at 40 mph. (Again, I didn't want to join the roadkill.)
I mentioned before how difficult this canyon climb is but I really wanted to get to the top because the Fall colors are starting to appear and I wanted to see what it was like up at the top. Down in the valleys we don't get all the fall colors, but the canyons are beautiful.
