Today’s hike was a “get out in the woods” hike. Between being sick most of January and issues with my mom, I haven’t been able to do much hiking this year. Today was president’s day and the weather was supposed to be pretty good. I decided head up a wintertime favorite – the Cripple Creek trail. Today’s hike wasn’t anything extraordinary, but it was really nice to get out in the woods and experience some of the new snow.

This is what the Trailhead looked like – more snow that I was expecting:

We headed up the hill, and the trail was covered with snow right from the beginning. There were a couple spots where it was bare, but not many. It didn’t take too long before the snow got pretty deep. I really should have brought my snowshoes. It was tough going. We made it to the hillside meadow:

Thor played around in the snow a bit – it was probably a foot deep up the hill. We then continued up the hill. The snow kept getting deeper. I was about to turn around, but I really wanted to get to the area below the 4635-120 spur road – it is one of my favorites on this trail. Although it was hard, I kept going – taking frequent breaks. There was lots of snow up higher:

At one point, the sun came out and broke thru the trees. It was really beautiful (the picture doesn’t do it justice):

We then slowly continued up the trail and finally made it to the spot between the two spur roads. We stopped and had lunch there and rested a bit and then headed up to the 4635-120 crossing, which had over 2′ of fluffy snow on it. Thor at one point just sat down on the road:

He was running thru the snow a lot but I didn’t get a good video of him in the snow this time. But I know he had a lot of fun! He made lots of tracks in the snow.

We then headed back down. The trip down was a LOT faster than the trip up! It was easier to step down thru the steps that had already been made, plus you were going downhill. We made GREAT time back to the truck and then headed home. Both Thor and I were pretty tired after the trip- but it was REALLY nice to get out in the woods and see the forest in its blanket of snow.