such an animal

Despite moaning and groaning and not wanting to get up when the alarm rang at 6:30 a.m. on a cloudy Sunday morning, we managed to get up and out and were on our bikes in Park City by 8:35 a.m., a half hour earlier even than we had been going.  It was a little bit cool, due to the early hour and the cloud cover, but there wasn't any wind and the riding temperature, once we got moving, was fantastic.  There were noticeably fewer people out and about, again due to either the time or the clouds (or both) and that was enjoyable too.

NOT falling off the bridge on Rambler

We did our usual route - Hat Trick to Matt's Flat, to Round Valley Express, to Valderoad, to the Practice Loop, to Rambler (up and up and up and then over and down - lots of time on Rambler), to Round Valley Express, to Silver Quinn's (or, in H's case, Rusty Shovel to Ramble On to Rambler to Practice Loop) and back to the trailhead - and only got sprinkled on a couple of times.  By the time we were heading back to the truck via the rail-to-trail bike path, the clouds had cleared and the sun came out, along with lots of fair weather bicyclists and runners.  Didn't matter to us: we'd gotten a good ride in without having to share the singletrack with too many other people.

And the title of this post?  It refers to H, first of all, because he rode really well up Pladsen Hill.  But it also refers to the coyote he spotted (in the Pladsen Hill area) and the ermine he saw (as we were leaving the Quinn's Trail Head and heading back to the bike path.  I missed seeing both critters of course - and am totally envious because they were really good ones!  I did see this flower, though, up at our picnic spot on Guardsman Pass.  We have been unable to identify it - can any of you?

Mystery wildflower: all by itself with no others within sight