Today I drove a little farther up Sucker Creek Road and ran on what turned out to be the other end of the trail I've been taking from an area several miles east of Lincoln. As I suspected, this one runs parallel to the lower trail past pothole ponds and a big aspen grove. This is a view through the trees from what I'll now call the upper trail, to the flatlands and pastures where the lower trail runs. Moments before I shot this, I saw three elk in almost the same spot just below me, but they'd moved into the trees by the time I fished out the phone.

This is a pretty nice trail, and I think I could make a fairly long and not-too-hilly loop out of it. I could park just about anywhere and go one direction on the lower trail, run up the road half a mile or so and go back on the upper trail. Based on some of the runs that almost made it to the other end, I'd guess the loop would be in the 7-8 mile range.

Saw many white tail deer today. They seem to be bunching up, while the elk seem to be breaking into smaller groups. I really don't know anything about these critters' behaviors, but that's what it seems like right now. My neighbor says when the deer bunch up it means there are predators (cat, wolf or bear) in the neighborhood. Beats me.


Running "in the woods" around here these days usually means running through areas of this: trees killed by the pine bark beetles. They're not quite as starkly ugly as when the trees are in the act of dying. That's when their needles turn reddish brown. And I think they're not quite as much of an explosive fire hazard once they get to this stage of dead (less volatile sap in 'em).

Nice day, breezy, overcast and a temperature in the low 40s. I got a new cord of split firewood yesterday, so I'll do more splitting and stacking today before settling in to watch the Masters golf tournament.

4; 29; 42; 244.3