Ute Valley Park

We were going hiking with a friend today. Unfortunately, he had to help another friend of mine move. By the time he was done, he was to exhausted to go hiking. The dog and I decided that we would not let that hamper our hiking plans on such a beautiful January day of 43 degrees and not a cloud in sight. We decided on Ute Valley Park. We quickly discovered that there were lots of people including bikers that were taking advantage of the nice weather. We purposely walked right past the trail that led back up to the way we came and decided to walk farther. I never bothered to look at a map of the park and didn't even know what the main trails were. We got off on a side trail and quickly discovered that there were no other hikers around anymore. I looked down in the sand and snow and noticed that there were no shoe, dog, or bike prints. We walked a little further and I quickly noticed some very big paw prints with huge claws in the prints. I surmised that those were much bigger then any dog I had even seen. We decided that those very well could be bobcat or mountain lion prints. I reminded myself that the bears would be hibernating this time of year. We came upon another side trail that seemed better then the one we were on. I noticed dog prints and shoe prints and felt much better. We followed this trail because it was going in the direction that we wanted to go. This trail led us down to a creek bed that was frozen over. I decided to keep the dog on his leash. I didn't want him to sniff out a snoozing bobcat or mountain lion or a hibernating bear. I usually let him off his leash when we go through trees or steep parts but not today. The trail went right onto a frozen creek bed. We slipped and slided our way up the creek stepping up icy little waterfalls. At one point, I could hear the water running under the ice and could hear the ice cracking. I didn't worry too much, because it would have only been ankle deep if the ice broke. At one point, the dog made it up an icy waterfall. I struggled a bit getting up the ice so he used all of his 41 pounds to pull me up. There were still no people, no dogs, no bikes, no voices, no nothing except the shoe prints and dog prints in the snow. As we were walking down this frozen creek bed, I saw perfect napping spaces for wild animals under these huge rocks. I was relieved that when I looked back into the crevices there was nothing there sleeping. I then saw a cave that went back into and under the rocks. I was almost positive that if I went back in that cave like crevice we would have found a hibernating bear. I was glad that I had decided to keep the dog on his leash. The last thing we needed was him to sniff out a wild animal or a hibernating bear. There was a fairly steep, icy, and narrow spot where the dog scrambled down and was about to pull me down so I threw the leash on down knowing that he would wait for me. There were still shoe and dog prints so we kept following that trail. Finally, we came up and found the main trail. I now knew exactly where we were. We quickly passed a mom and her kids and their big black dog that Aspen had to say hi too. We back tracked and walked for quite some time until we were back at the trail head we started at. We called it a good two hour hike and went home.