Pine Valley

Saturday, January 29, 2022 

Hike #11 of 2022.  7.0 miles / 46.0 miles YTD

We sought out the snow today and headed up to Pine Valley!  We spent so many hours camping and hiking in Pine Valley from March-October 2021 but haven't been back since.  It felt so good to be back in the place that is the most like "home" to us here in Utah now.


Pine Valley is always a good 20* cooler than the St. George area.  That is why we spent so much time hiking and camping here last summer.  So we were expecting it to be quite chilly but it was near 50* so it really wasn't bad at all...until the sun started to go down.  Then it got chilly fast.  But we were smart enough to bring appropriate layers along this time.  Although, we honestly had thought we'd need them the entire time but really didn't until near the end of the hike.

We had already found out on Thanksgiving Day that Summit loves running in sand.  Well, today we found the same to be true of snow (although the snow was more difficult than sand for her because she actually sank in quite a bit in a lot of places).  It was difficult for us as well but I think I preferred it to sand because, with sand, you slip back a tiny bit with every step you take.  We did wear our Yak Traks, which helps a lot with slipping.  But with the snow, we sank in but not back.  So we did have to take higher steps but were able to make mostly 100% forward progress.


This was one of the deepest spots for Summit.  Thankfully it was not this deep the entire time.


Excited to run through the snow!

I wanted to get this pic of all our feet because we have a similar photo with Bear from a trip to TN back in 2014.  It looks a little like Dan is stepping on Summit's foot but he is not.

Today was a great day!

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