Today we are planning to go cross country skiing in Flagstaff at the Nordic Village. We check online and supposedly there is snow, not a lot but still a bit so on we go. As we get there however it is closed, or at least the rentals are closed due to too little snow. We really think they should have put this on their website but what can we do so we go to our second choice Fort Tuthill County Park starting a hike that goes around the park with the plan to find a few caches along the way.
It is actually a fun hike with quite a few birds especially dark eyed juncos and some fine caches including some handmade ones.
There is some snow on the ground which makes for the good portions of the trail as otherwise it can be quite muddy and we have to avoid them as much as we can.
Still the muddy trail makes for relatively few people on the trails at least in the areas we are walking in which is great for us as we enjoy the solitude. We even find a beautiful Witches Broom on the way, it is quite unusual and the first time we saw one.
On the return trip we try a different trail for a loop and this one has even more snow and we enjoy playing around in it for a while before continuing on.
In this stretch we also find a Lewis woodpecker, the first one that we ever saw which is a huge bonus, besides the many beautiful Abert’s squirrel that are seemingly everywhere eating their fill of seeds and bark from the pines.
And then it is time to return, this time we actually pass a lot of people, everyone was in the snowplay area it seems.
After arriving at the car we are quite hungry so we drive to Flagstaff for a quick dinner at a Mexican fast food restaurant. It is reasonably good but very difficult to order as it is the first time we ever visited it. And then we have to drive back to Phoenix with no skiing today but at least we saw snow and enjoyed it.
