Today is the last day of winter... the Eve of Spring. And I couldn't be happier to have this winter season behind us. Not that it was a terrible winter or especially long, but I have this bone-deep desire to walk a long distance without needing to trudge through snow or ice. I want to walk!
But even though I really want to move on to spring, our final hike of this winter season was pretty darn awesome!
Alan had never seen the old quarry on top of Rib Mountain and Charlie & I had never been up there in the winter, and since the weather was so gorgeous on Saturday, we all headed out to enjoy the new terrain together!
The trail is not very steep but there's a noticeable incline. We were definitely breathing heavier by the time we got up to the top. It seems this has been a busy trail over the winter; the snowpack on the trail was pretty dense and was becoming slippery as the sun began to warm the surface. I had a feeling this would be a challenge when we were ready to descend, but I decided to "be like a dog" and just focus on the present moment... enjoying the beautiful day.
Charlie romped around off-leash as Alan and I observed the quarry walls while shielding our eyes from the glaring sun. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sunny blueness was nearly blinding.
It's definitely hard to "treasure hunt" with a deep layer of snow still covering the landscape, but Alan managed to find a palm-sized heart-shaped rock to add to my collection. He's so sweet and thoughtful.
Charlie also found a treasure... a deer antler burr. The ironic thing was that Alan and I had planned on trying to train her to do some shed hunting (looking for naturally shed deer antlers), but haven't had time to work with her yet. Apparently she found one all on her own! She's a smart cookie.
We played fetch with her little antler burr for a bit, until I realized what it was and tried putting it in Alan's backpack to save for later. Charlie found it immediately and began jumping up trying to get it out of the backpack. Oh well. I gave it back to her, but she lost it a little while later. Figures.
Anyway, now that we know she's interested in finding antlers, we can work with her as the snow melts and see what we find!
VIDEO:
The walk down was slippery, as I had predicted. But we clomped through the crusty snow at the edge of the trail instead and no one fell.
Overall, it was a pretty short hike - only 2 miles. But the incline and challenging descent gave us a good workout and Charlie was ready for a nap when we got home. Good-bye winter! Hello Spring.
