Late winter at Horsetooth
On the second day of spring I'm reflecting on winter running. I ran just for fun, no serious workouts, and one long run in the hills each week at most.
The Spring Creek, Mill Creek, Towers Trail intersection, 2022-02-26
The second half of winter was rather snowy, but also had some breaks of sunny and mild weather. Running on freshly packed snow under a blue sky is a lot of fun. The traction is good and the crunching sound is pleasing and there are lots of interesting animal tracks.
Mountain lion tracks, 2022-02-26
On this particular day I saw mountain lion tracks all over the Towers summit. Several adult cats or one very busy individual using the hiking trail and circling off to follow deer tracks or do other feline business. If I'd been up there a few hours earlier I might have awkwardly bumped into them. Being bigger and more stinky than the average runner, I'm relatively safe, but still, the hair on the back of my neck was standing up as I trotted to the top and immediately turned around and went back down, not too quickly, not too slowly.