the Way of the Turtle

2 Mi XC Ski at Tinker Nature Park
Saturday, January 3, 2009

Tinker Nature Park info

It was too nice a day to spend indoors, so after we'd had some lunch Ann and I packed our gear and headed over to Tinker Nature Park for some XC skiing before it got dark and the park closed. I chose Tinker for a couple of reasons - the trail system is relatively small (only about 2.5 miles) and best of all flat (didn't fell like struggling up and down hills after this morning) and every time I've been there in the last year I've seen a birds and deer.

The parking lot was surprisingly crowded, but thankfully the trails weren't. Of course, the paths had all been skiied, walked, snowshoed, and so on by lots of folks since Wednesday, so the snow was packed down pretty solidly, but that just meant we could move at a faster pace than we did at Oatka Creek Park yesterday. Ann really seems to be enjoying her new skis... I told her she'd be faster than me now, and I was right. My only advantage is endurance - she gets tired and slows down more quickly than I do. I guess all that running, riding, and snowshoeing is good for something...

We saw lots of deer while we were there... first a group laying down in the bushes along the trail, then another group moving through the woods later on, and finally yet another group laying down in the bushes... probably a dozen or so in all between the three groups. The last two actually came out of the woods looking for food as we were getting ready to leave, and I spent a bit of time trying to get some decent shots of them... not the easiest thing to do, since it was getting dark.

JMH