Done Exploring Side Roads on Pajarito

My consensus is that I understand them well enough now - they basically run east-west, crossing the ski runs, sometimes traversing uphill, sometimes dead-ending but usually always intersecting one of the main jeep roads on the east or west sides of the mountain.  For now, I'll just enjoy my walks on Pajarito and all the variation that the side roads afford me.

Why Does It Look Like Rain But Doesn't Rain

Well, there WAS a little rain on Pajarito Mountain but only toward the end when I was going back to the Lodge anyway.  It was a cool, cloudy, almost fall-like day so that part was fine with me.  Lightning was not a factor and I always like that.

Morose thoughts while studying flowers on Pajarito Mountain:  The flowers know what I refuse to accept - life ends.  Already I can read the signs - seedheads forming on mariposa lilies in Cañada Bonita meadow, aster petals shredding and losing their color on Pajarito Mountain, death camas beginning to go to seed even while their white, candlestick-like blooms thickly populate the ski runs.  But flowers will enjoy a renaissance next Spring while my body goes slowly, steadily to the ultimate end - loss of sentience. 

Along these same lines, at the picnic deck near the Aspen Lift, I wondered to myself, in Zen koan-like fashion, if it's better to be lonely alone or to be lonely in crowd.  Then it struck me that when I'm feeling lonely and sorry for myself, I'm not fully opening my eyes and ears to the sights and sounds around me.  Distracting oneself in the NOW may help to banish moroseness!

I'm reading a book, Heroic Climbs.  It has two photos 19th century women mountain climbers, one wearing a face mask with holes for eyes and mouth and another a helmet-like drape with a slit for eyes, open at the bottom to allow air to enter. So, even though wearing a sun protection mask is thought to be extremely odd today, it has precedent in the past!