Catherineville State Forest, Santamont Trail - Part 2

The dogs and I were hiking in the snowy Catherineville State Forest (see also Part 1, posted yesterday):

The dogs were less rambunctious than usual, which made me happy, yet they got to run and play - and also to poop and pee everywhere:

Fergus, Daphne and Seamus went exploring off the trail, but they didn't go too far:

And sometimes they thought they heard something. They'd all stop and pick up their ears, then decide they'd been mistaken and continue on along the trail:

Fergus most often walks at my heels but was more forward on this hike, though he sometimes looked back at me to see if I was OK with that. I was:

It was lots of fun, but we didn't go far. Soon we turned back the way we'd come, returning to our parked car:

Clover and Daphne, imagining themselves to be Timber Wolves, strode boldly through the trees off the trail:

We stopped at a giant bolder, a glacial erratic, a bit of "gravel" left behind as the glaciers melted:

We again crossed a Balsam Fir which had fallen across the trail:

And took another exploratory trip off the trail:

I was happy to be out in nature and to have the dogs behaving so well:

And then we saw our little red car, parked along the side of the road up ahead. I had all the dogs heel (our version is pretty loose). Jack has never quite learned, but he sort of has the idea by watching the other dogs: