Alpine, California
	5.2 miles 860 feet 2 hours 20 minutes
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The hike into the canyon was enjoyable, with some nice mountain views along the way down. The route is entirely downhill on the way in, and then straight up when returning. I think I enjoyed this hike a lot more because of the beautiful skies. The clouds not only mitigated the sun exposure, but also created some lovely scenes.

The Sweetwater River at the bottom of the canyon was a let down. You could barely see the water because it was completely overgrown with bushes. Still the trees along the river had a nice yellow color to them, something we don't see a lot of in SoCal.

An unexpected highlight was a big area of slab rock. It wasn't directly accessible via the trail, but you could get atop it by working your way through some small bushes. I didn't explore it too much, but if I go back I'm definitely checking it out more thoroughly.

One big negative was an incident involving dogs. The hillside trail passes by a loose collection of homes — something of a shanty town — about halfway down. When we returned back up we were accosted by two large dogs that ran from one of these properties. They were barking and didn't have a friendly disposition. There was a real moment of intense fear that they would attack as the dogs came within less than 10 feet of us. Eventually an owner from far down the hill shouted for them to return, but that was after a long while. There was nothing to stop the dogs from biting us.

Some nice valley views on the way down. You can just see the rock slab on the left.

A splash of autumn color on the trees by the river.

The sky was just gorgeous around sunset.

My first ever banh mi!

We picked up sandwiches from Banh Mi Blvd. They were decent, but maybe next time I'd order with different fillings. The taste of the fake meat they used was a bit off.