Walking Wonders

Finally back to one of my favorite activities (hiking) after a long spell away. Yesterday’s 6.5-mile hike was a pleasant meandering under a crystal blue sky with temps around 80 and a light breeze. Ideal conditions and despite losing the trail at one time, a good opening hike back into my usual multiple-hikes-per-week travel norm.

Teddy Roosevelt National Park’s geography is the badlands type, and is host to a lot of wildlife, most notably bison. This visit I haven’t seen too many of them (unlike the July trip when a herd of ~80 wandered into the campground and lazed about for a good two hours). What I’ve seen have made for good photos, as well as some turkeys, antelopes (no pix), deer (no pix), and prairie dogs.

There are enough valleys in between the mesas and such to make getting lost not a huge problem, and easy to one’s way back if needed. Still, this was my first hike since acquiring a Garmin inReach Mini, a GPS text device used by many hikers (especially good solo hiker gear). The InReach provides texting capabilities but more importantly an SOS button with a rescue service at the other end if needed. As I hike farther and farther distances into more remote wilderness, the inReach seems like a smart accessory to carry.

Enjoy the photo gallery below from yesterday’s hike (tap any photo to enlarge and launch slide show). Sorry about the sun flare in the photo at the top, but the shot was so beautiful I decided to use it anyway! See you down the trail.