The great find of the week, hiking wise, was Summit Post. And it seems to have brought some more visitors as well, since I put this website up. If you are intersted in hiking, go check it out. It has tons of information on hiking areas across the world. Locally, it had trail information for all the destination hikes–summit of mountains, lakes, etc. I can also sign trail logs and keep track of where I’ve been, and even add about anything I would want to.

It’s getting colder now. We took a short hike on Saturday and found snow on the trail. I’m actually surprising myself by being quite happy about the change of seasons. Winter is just more laid back. And I’ve always thought fall was the prettiest time of year. I really enjoy going outside in the fall, even when it is cold. (I think its easier when its cold instead of too hot. You just bundle up, and don’t have to stay out that long.) Last night, I took Peter out before dinner. He kept going to the door, poor kid hadn’t been anywhere all day. We played on the playground out back–he loves to swing and go down slides. There’s so much to explore too. I love watching him enjoy life and figure out new things. He kept pointing to the trees or sky, and I was trying to figure out what he wanted explained to him. He has this “oo-daa” he says, which is his “what’s that?” It’s so cute.

Then later on, I went to put something on the window sill and was surprised by a cat at my window. Pete and I went out and played with her a little. I wish I could have a cat, but in the meantime it was fun playing with the one we found. It was fun to see them interact. Peter would crawl after her, and she wasn’t timid and let him pet her.

I went to Curly Springs on Friday with the fam. And it is way warm for November. We were both sweating. For our hike, we started at the Dry Canyon trail head in Lindon, than hiked clear over to Battle Creek. It was about 5 miles, with 1000 ft elevation change.  The hike wasn’t gorgeous by any means. Great views out to the valley but devoid of much vegetation at first, and than it was more woodsy and nice over by Battle Creek. I just wasn’t much into it though. I think I was working a little too hard, took me forever to feel recovered.

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Battle Creek is nice, because it usually involves a trip to the Grandparents. They even had pizza waiting! I love my grandparents.

We decided to go up Diamond Fork canyon to go hiking this week. The trails are a bit confusing and not clearly marked at the beginning, but I think we ended up going up Brimhall canyon road several miles up the canyon on the right. There seems to be a lot of private land intermixed with the national forest which was why I was confused. We didn’t have a whole lot of time anyway and just went about a mile or so up the trail. It was quite a nice autumn hike. It would have been terribly hot in the summer, but was a nice hike now with more range type vegetation and hills not mountains.

So do you always stick to established hiking trails? How about one marked on maps with with little signage or upkeep? Or ones used for purposes other than hiking, like ranching and hunting? I’m still generally don’t bushwhack, except in the winter snowshoeing. There seems to be more possible hiking trails than there are established ones, and I like to hike new places. Sometimes finding the new places is the hard part. Up in Cache Valley, they have a wonderful guidebook you can buy that has all the trails around, with lots of great information. I have not found anything remotely similar down here. I usually get trails off of USGS maps which is not as good as a good trail guide. I’m also writing about all of them, so I can make a guide of sorts for future reference. Any resources I haven’t found yet?

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We meant to go here a few weeks ago. But we made it Tuesday night. It was a great little afternoon/evening hike, and the fall color was gorgeous. Better, I think, than a few weeks ago. The colors are more vibrant: the reds are deeper reds, there was more yellow, and it all sticks out more. The oaks are turning brown. Not that pretty, but marking the further growth of fall. This fall has been long and warm: it looks like this week it’s time to bring in the tomatoes. But not having to do that until the end of October? Awesome.

Back to the hike. It seemed to be mostly a cattle ranch trail: we even met a group of cowboys herding down the cows for winter on our way up. That had us trying to get Peter to say “moo,” unsuccesfully. (But he does say “up” and its adorable.) The trailhead was a few miles up the right fork in Hobble Creek canyon, right next to a large corral. Besides the cowboys down the road, we didn’t meet a soul. I love Hobble Creek because of that. The hike was pleasent, minus the missing jackets. (I forgot it was fall, and fall means jackets. It’s just been so warm.) We took the right side of every fork, and our trail dead-ended at a spring about a mile and a half up.

I love hiking in the fall. Best hiking season ever. Minus the deer hunt, but that was easily avoided this year. The color of the leaves, the cool air. It’s wonderful. This time of year is also when I had baby Pete last year. I enjoyed that time, and took lots of walks out in the leaves with my tiny infant. I’m even looking forward to the snow this week. (If you include snow in fall and spring it greatly extends those seasons. Isn’t part of fall waking up to snow on the ground, only to have it melt away in hours?)