Some how I have gotten away from posting my hikes here. Talk about them on Facebook, but need to keep this site more up to date. I have taken many hikes since my last post. Also considering putting them into a book format . . .

On this Christmas day, I needed a “spirit renewing hike” badly.

The day was gloomy and it had snowed during the night.

I had seen the full moon and hadn’t expected to awake to snow on the ground.

Started out just walking around town. Then the sun came out.

I headed up the street towards the water tank trail to see how icy or deep in snow it would be.

Not to bad.

Realizing I didn’t have the proper shoes, no water or a pole, I gingerly started up the trail.

There were places it was a bit more snowy and icy than I felt totally comfortable, but then there were areas the snow was barely covering the trail.

The weather changed soon after I started the hike, but not too cold.

Sometimes I like to test myself and make sure I no longer experience vertigo when looking down from heights. So I walked over  to a cliff and looked back down to the path below.

And I was just fine. So hiked on a bit farther.

Then I spied one of my favorite things to photograph: Rusty objects.

I played with this for a while.

On one part of the trail, I realized there was one other set of tracks. This set didn’t look like a deer as the first set of tracks I had seen when starting out. And they were very fresh. Began looking around me more to be sure nothing was waiting for me . . .

And when it started to snow I turned back and began to head back down the trail. Still a bit wary of spotting a creature that I might not like being alone with in the mountains.

Tried to capture snowflakes falling. Not an easy thing to do. But did catch a few in the photos.

And then there were some lovely pine cones to capture.

They reminded me of winter flowers blossoming in the trees and on the ground.

Then the blue sky started to come back again.

But not for long.

And the sky was very strange. “Mama always said, Don’t look into the sun.”

But I couldn’t help taking some photos of the sky with sun brightly behind the clouds.

Looking down upon my town made me think of these words:

O’ Little Town of Manitou Springs . . . How still you lie below.

How I love you so . . .

So I headed back to my home. Blue skies showed up for a short time. but by the time I got home it was lightly snowing again.

And will try to capture the full moon Christmas night, but finding that challenging for my camera.

Merry Christmas 2015 and to all, a good night!