pace yourself

The weather is beginning to change here in Utah - just in time for the big Thanksgiving travel days - so we thought we should go over to Park City one last time until spring (we do everything we can to avoid going to Park City during the winter since Parley's Canyon can be so treacherous).  Saturday was forecast to be the better of the two weekend days; we got our hiking stuff together, threw Milton in the car and were on the road by 9:30 a.m.

Momentary pause

We had initially planned to hike the Glenwild area but when we pulled in to the small parking lot, we saw a new [since we had been there last] sign saying that dogs had to be on leash.  We wanted Milt to be able to run, so we piled back into the car and drove to the North Valley Trailhead of the Round Valley trails instead.  At the trailhead there was a pack of five dogs heading out with their people, a pack of five dogs finishing up with their people and a lone fatbiker; other than a couple of trailrunners towards the end of our hike, we really didn't see any people out on the trails.  We didn't see any critters either but there were TONS of deer / rabbit / squirrel tracks.

That's a nice sky

The sun was out and melting the frozen dirt so the trail surface varied from packed snow to slick mud.  For the most part, we were able to stick to snow, rock and dry dirt although we did notice that a couple of trails had been closed to protect their surfaces.  We started out going up Happy Gilmor, then switched to follow some equestrian trails up to the ridge.  These equestrian trails differ from the MTB trails in that they pretty much go straight up, instead of working their way to the top via innumerable switchbacks.  When we reached Rademan Ridge, we went down Rambler, crossed Round Valley Express and Rambler, and started climbing again on the faint doubletrack where the buried pipeline goes.  Up and over the top, we jumped onto Rusty Shovel at the point, took it down to Ramble On and then turned left on Ramble On.  From here, we took the connector to Round Valley Express, crossed there and followed the unnamed trails back to the trailhead.

Beginning to look wintery

Milton looked like he was having so much fun.  He must have doubled the mileage we did (we did around 5.5 miles), ranging far afield and then sprinting back to us, pouncing on things both real and imaginary, and just running-running-running.  He did start to slow down a little towards the end, when we got on Ramble On, and when we got back to the car, he laid right down on the towel we put out for him.  Once home, he crashed - hard.  "Pace yourself" is not part of his vocabulary at this point.

Hike stats: 5:48 miles; moving 2:00 hours / 2.7 m.p.h.; overall 2:12 / 2.5; 700' elevation