6.5 mile hike...in the COLD!

I am loving Thursdays right now!  My husband's current work schedule has him off on Thursdays, and it's also a school day for our Kindergartner, so that means...adults' play day!  Also, hiking has become my new favorite mode of cross-training.  There are so many trail heads within a 10-15 minute drive from our house, that we'll probably never run out of places to explore.  Today we did a 6.5 mile hike.  We left the house a little after 8, and as we pulled into the trail head parking area, our car thermometer said 21 degrees!  The first 2 miles of the hike were all uphill, steep uphill.  Excellent CV workout, not to mention I'm pretty sure I gained an ounce or two of muscle in my calves just today! ;)

After those first couple of miles, the higher we got on the mountain, the more snow there was on the ground. Our feet got a little wet and cold, but we stopped for a picnic lunch and made a fire to warm up.  It was so fun!  As we hiked, we were noticing some huge moose tracks along the trail.  At some point we had stopped to take a couple of photos, and as I looked up at the mountain side, I saw something big and black.  There were two bull moose up there!  We took a bunch of pictures and couple of videos, hiked another mile or so on the trail, then turned around and headed back the way we came.  Despite the wind and the cold, we had a great time, and probably burned a fierce amount of calories! ☺