First Hike of 2019

Despite the temps dipping below freezing overnight 27 of us geared up and headed for the trails today. Personally I had 2 long sleeve shirts on as well as 2 jackets, but I was far from the only one looking like the Michelin Man.

First thing though I had to deal with a couple of impromptu fountains here in the park. Luckily the temperatures don’t dip below freezing very often here, but when they do, it’s always interesting to see how many of the water stands for the RV sites break overnight. In front of our Park Model is the short term RV parking and the site in the very middle of the circle had a 20 foot fountain as a ‘feature’. I ended up shutting that one off, but not before the unit behind us also let go, and the back of our home was sprayed with water. Once that was dealt with we packed up and headed to the trail.

A lot of the snow on the South Side of the mountain in front of our place had gone away, but we were hiking on the North side of the same mountain, and it still had quite a bit of snow on it.

Lots of our views were of the 4 Peaks area, and while the sun wasn’t cooperating all that well, we did get some nice pics.

The views definitely got better as the day went along.

Did I mention that it was Cccold? On thing we don’t see that often in the desert is ICE.

This last pic is a location called Massacre Falls. It usually is just a trickle of water, but the cold weather has kept the ice in place nicely.

The rest of the hike was crisp and cold, but the views were nice.

This last one is of Mistletoe, which we often see hanging in the desert trees. It usually looks dry and dead. This is the first time I recall seeing what looks like flowers on the plant.

And that’s it for another 5.5 mile jaunt through the rocks.

Don’t let the toque fool you, Laurie is from Michigan, but we would welcome her anytime.