J-W-T and V-O-T-R-S-P

No, the title of this posting is not a song by the Village People or Aretha Franklin. They are the initials of our first two hikes of 2015.

Last year we hiked the Jacksonville Woodland Trails almost 30 times and did a few postings of those hikes, especially when the wildflowers were in bloom. Since this group of inter-connecting trails is close by, allows dogs and offers us the opportunity of "creating our own hike", we like to hike there often.

So to start 2015 it was off to JWT. The first trail of our hike was in the shade and with the recent freezing night temperatures, the ground was frozen hard and the trail was outlined in frost.

Frozen and frosty trails in the shade at JWT

The sun came out about the time we started hiking, so we decided to turn off the "frozen" trail and head for the sun-warned trails.  Although that sounded good at the time, we soon found out that the sun-warmed trails had melted frost which meant MUD!!  We did warm up as we slipped and slid through the muck, but soon decided frozen and shaded weren't so bad after all.  It's all about perspective. We didn't take any pictures of the mud trails as both arms and hands were needed to maintain balance and not become one with the mud.  Katie on the other hand used her 4-paw drive and had no issues.  We hiked at least 11 different trail segments in about 2 hours and it felt good to get out -- too much cabin fever.

We also recently made our second hike of 2015 at Valley of the Rogue State Park.  The park is about halfway between Medford and Grants Pass, so when we make trips to Grants Pass we usually stop at the State Park or Cathedral Hills in Grants Pass and get a few miles of hiking done.

We started at the rest stop area just outside the park and hiked to the Rivers Edge trailhead. This path takes you along the Rogue River from one end of the park to the other and covers one-and-a-quarter miles.  On this occasion we saw lots of Black Headed Grosbeaks along the trail and twice we got to watch large Great Blue Herons fly along the river.  (Those birds are so big and prehistoric looking)

River's Edge trail

View of the Rogue River from the trail

Clouds still covering the surrounding hills as the sun tries to come out

Yes, there was some blue sky!!!

We also hiked through some of the campground and along the bike path to make up our one-and-a-half hour hike.  Glenn was given a pedometer for his birthday from our daughter Maggie and we tested it out on this hike, registering a 4.05 mile hike. Although most of our hikes are along a designated trail with known mileage, the pedometer will help us track miles more accurately, especially for hikes like those on this post since we deviate from the official trail from time to time.

Well that's it for now. We hope you have a great 2015 and we look forward to sharing some of our 2015 adventures with you.

Trekking Together
Glenn & Carol