9:00 am I phoned Josh. He answered on the fourth or fifth ring. "Good morning or good afternoon...which ever it is." I said, "We need a driver to take us to Little Mountain for a walk in the woods."
Josh was happy to drive and get out to stretch his legs. We found our way to the trailhead and went out for a snowy and icy winter walk in the trees that were mostly cedar. The temperature was a few degrees above freezing, and felt fresh and clean. The forest looked great contrasted against the white snow. The night before there had been a strong wind raging through the Okanagan and it left debrie all over the forest floor...cones, leaves and small branches. Naomi started building a snowman out of perfect sticky snow and we adorned it with cones and branches. The pathways crisscross everywhere so it is rather easy to loose our sense of position but we took the Outer Loop Trail to maximize our walk. In some places we were challenged to stay upright on our feet with the melting icy patches along the way. The inclines took special caution and happy to say, not one of us spilled onto our backsides though we did loose our footing a few times. My rubber boots are rather bald of much grip from a year or so of wear. Clinging to the odd tree along the way surely helps. We came upon a donkey in a forested yard of a private yard and enjoyed a short friendly visit. Eventually we took the Fieldview Trail and finally onto the Summit Trail to the top where we enjoyed a short stop to take in the view looking across the city of Salmon Arm, Mount Ida and other mountains roundabout, and north across the cold open water of Shuswap Lake. We soon descended down with great care not to slip and fall until we encountered a Pine Trail sign and being uncertain of our exact place in the park we gave it our best guess and lucked out in finding the end of our trail where our van was parked. If wrong we would have been making our second loop around the park.
It was pleasant day out for a casual walk with fine cedar scented fresh air breathed in throughout our bodies.