Wrong Way Me

A friend from CrossFit asked if I could show him some trails to hike on. He is looking for some nice hiking trails to take his wife on. I said sure!

I've been asked by other friends at CF and they sort of have interest but then sort of don't pursue the request. I won't push anyone into hiking with me at all. It has to be their choice.

Bill and I set a date and time and went for it.

The above shot is one from Bill's cell phone as we started out the hike. The Reserve has many trails and some are very nice wide trails that are shared in the winter with snowmobile trails. Other trails over more sensitive areas are only for hikers. Many trails are multi use which really makes this a great place for everyone.

A person can choose to take tough trails or easy trails.

With the warm temperatures this past weekend, the snow melt was significant. It was obvious that the trails had turned to mushy wet footprints that with Monday's cold weather had turned the trails into icy rugged ankle twisters. 

I suggested we hike with Yak Traks and Bill agreed.  There was an ice crust on the remaining snow on the sides of the trail, but walking in that was harder than negotiating the icy footprints.

I'd taken a less traveled route and by mistake followed the snow mobile trail in the wrong direction I wanted to go in...but the footing was so much nicer! 

Hikers and snowmobiles share these trails and it was easier to walk on.

We went around a huge rock formation and Bill pointed it out. I said something like not recalling that on my last hike.

Then at the bottom of a long hill I stopped in my tracks. I'd taken a wrong turn. At marker 3, I should have gone left instead of right. Bill laughed and we made the executive decision to just double back as we had plenty of time.

That's Bill.
It didn't matter much to him that we were back tracking at all. He said the scenery was stunning and I had to agree with him.

IF I had used viewed my position on Google Maps with the Satellite choice, I would have easily seen that I was very close to where I'd parked just last week to hike to the ice caves.
My bad.
We could have walked out the the county road and hiked along the nice flat road back to where we had parked.

Both Bill and I decided we'd come back this spring and hike to the formation of interesting rocks we'd seen.
I was embarrassed that I'd taken the wrong turn and felt worse than ever about it after I realized that I could have made our hike back a bit easier.
Bill was such a good sport.

The end result was that we walked the less icy trails...AND Bill asked if we could hike again next week.
So I guess I didn't put him off after all.

I think Bill is getting his own map of KVR and he said next time he was bringing his compass.
I usually have one attached to my back pack.

I wonder where I left it.
Anyway two heads are better than one I think.