All in all, it wasn’t a bad day; not too cold, a little sun, and frozen snow that you could almost walk on.
Animal sightings: two Mule deer (grazing in the sun on the high bare ridge in the background of the second photo), two White-tails (in the brushy canyon bottom where White-tails usually lurk during the day), one grouse (flying just behind the nearest brush immediately after it startled the heck out of me by launching itself past my ear), one coyote (who was wearing a very attractive winter jacket!), and two doofuses (who were trying, unsuccessfully, to extricate their truck from a snowbank about two miles from where I thought it prudent to leave my Jeep and proceed on foot). A fairly good day for the animals (except for the doofuses, who, I’m quite sure, have had better ones).
It was three miles of bad road to the trail head at Spring Creek
where I found it would be best to wait a week or so for more snow before hiking up the trail (too much crusted snow for hiking but not quite enough to be comfortable on snowshoes).
Besides the invigorating walk in/on the snow and the winter beauty of the forest, when I arrived at this turn in the road just before the trail head
I enjoyed the memory of that sunny day in mid-June on the steep hillside at the left side of the photo, when these Tolmie Tulips were in bloom.