Snow Hike with Daughter

One of my favorite places to hike or to run is the Forest Park Nature Center. There are several miles of trails there, and the place really changes from season to season. One of my routes is the outer loop (which I measured at 3.5 miles; the official distance is 3.23). On a dry day, it takes me anywhere from 38 to 45 minutes to run, and from 48 to 60 to walk. Right now, the trails are completely packed with snow and the last time it took me 1:14 (74 minutes) to walk the loop. To put this into perspective, it would take me about 42 minutes to walk the same distance on a dry road with the same effort.

Today, I took Olivia out for about 3 miles worth; she seemed to enjoy the experience. Here are some photos of what the trail looks like right now (click on the photo to see a larger version):

Those who know the Nature Center might recognize these photos as coming from the Bee Tree and the Wakerobin trails respectively.



Here we are close to the trailhead store; the deer in this photo were small spotted fawns the last time Olivia was here (in the summer of 2005).