Winterfest 2014

This weekend was another fun one enjoying Winter in Utah. The Department of Natural Resources held an event called Winterfest, where they let people pay a small fee to get into East Canyon State Park and provided them with all the gear to do a number of winter activities. You could snow mobile, ice fish, cross country ski, snowshoe, and/or go sledding.

The group heading down the Winterfest

Andrew is the president of the Zoology Club at Weber State, and they decided to attend as a group. Since I have an in with the pres, I tagged along. We started the day with snowshoeing, and I was a little nervous. I usually can't keep up when doing a hike, and these are people who love doing field work. But it turned out to be a great time! It is like hiking, but adding the snow element actually makes it a lot more fun. You can go off the trails, or really anywhere! We hiked up part of the mountain, and these Zoology kids were fun to hang out with. They kept naming the phylum and species of everything they saw, and identifying the plants along the trail. I wasn't exactly interested in the conversation, but it gave me a chance to catch up so I was never left too far behind.

It started to snow while we were snowshoeing

That being said it was eye opening to hike with them. They pointed out different tracks up the mountain, even found a dead deer...ok that was kind of gross, but still these are things I never would have seen if they hadn't pointed it out. They saw an imprint in the snow of where a bird had swooped down to catch something. You could see the bird's feathers imprinted on the snow. Then while driving back we saw countless deer (I guess I'm just oblivious because I never see any by myself, but they literally pointed out like 20 deer), and even three golden eagles. Usually when I'm hiking I'm just trying to catch up, and you know, not pass out. But this was pretty fun, and walking all around the mountain really warms you up!

After the snowshoeing they did some sledding, which I bowed out of. Speeding down hills isn't exactly my cup of tea. After one or two nasty tumbles, they gave that one up. Some people did the snowmobiles, other chatted with the DNR employees. Then we all headed home. Afterward some of us grabbed Thai food and later coffee. It was a really fun day getting to meet some of Andrew's friends.

Lining Up to Sled