Take a Hike!

Okay, I hope that didn't sound mean at all.  But I just had to try out my new snowshoes.  
It is funny how after a few days of bitter cold, it doesn't seem to bother me much.  
Of course I do dress for it.

The snowshoes worked wonderfully.  Morris even liked them enough to try and walk on the backs of them.  I took them off when I got to the creek and left them on the trail to put back on when I returned.  This meant coming home the exact way I'd left, but that was okay.

Morris as usual, had a blast.
Here he tries to dig out a mouse nest.

Later on as we got nearer PeeWee's Valley, we heard the ruckus of snow mobiles.  I swear, they must put something on those things so that they literally scream.  The echo in the valley was a bit loud.

Morris didn't really like them at all and we didn't travel any further down the valley.  I had intended to go to the big spring and get some shots of the frost on the rocks, but that will have to wait  for another day.
The shot above was taken with my FujiFilm FinePix HS 30 EXR in RAW mode and then edited with Fuji Film's software.  I think this is some of the finest software that any camera company has ever come up with for RAW.  Nikon has a stand alone converter, but it isn't as good as this.

My purpose today was to try out some more functions on the Fuji and on the Nikon D3100.  I was trying to avoid the dreaded blue cast that I seem to get quite a bit on snow shots.  There are some tricks to helping with it and I'll review that on another post.

After about an hour Morris began to try and walk ~ not walk on his feet.  He kept holding his paws up and then began to shiver pretty hard.

I decided to pack things up and head back home.  Feeling a bit sorry for him I held out my arms and he climbed into them.  He then rode with his back feet on my pistol belt and spare cartridge, his front feet cradled into my arm or sometimes...he turned and rode looking backwards over my shoulder.

We got home just before dark and began to help hubby out with the chores.  I had let Morris in and he raced towards the heater which was blowing warm air.
It was a great day.