It's hard to come up with titles after fourteen years

In the last few years, there have been lots of new trails built in Bountiful and North Salt Lake, and it has been fun to be able to branch out and try new things. Some of the new trails haven't intrigued me enough to return, but some have.

In Bountiful, there's the Mueller Park trail, which is lovely but busy and overrated. But just past the Mueller Park trailhead is the Mueller Park picnic area, which says you need to pay to use it "for any reason," but I am still unsure whether that means just the picnic sites or the trails as well. 

Anyway, on Monday I went on the new trails in that fee area, but I didn't pay the fee because the rules are unclear. (You can access them via the free trails anyway.) There are many new lower-elevation trails there that are very popular with mountain bikers, which can get a little annoying. I think I have now been on all the new lower-elevation portions. Sometime I will have to try out the upper trails.

Cutleaf balsamroot is in season!

And so is arrowleaf balsamroot.

In Mueller Park, there is a paved road that turns into a dirt road that turns into a trail. This trail meets up, awkwardly, at this new bridge on one of the new trails. But east of the bridge, the trail is a downhill bike trail.

But I was more excited for my Saturday run. I went on the new trail in North Canyon that I have tried a few times recently, which goes to Cave Peak. This time, I went on a different spur of the trail and followed it, not knowing where or how far it went. After I had been running 5.2 miles, it finally met up with the main North Canyon trail, not far from Rudy's Flat, and I knew exactly where I was. This new trail was less steep, but it was longer and less shady. One of the things I love about North Canyon is the shade. But I'm glad there's an extra trail now so I can vary my routes. I can make it more of a loop, but only on days where I don't care about shade. To take it as a loop is a little over eight miles.

Glacier lilies are still abundant at the higher elevations

When I got to the main North Canyon trail, there were branches blocking the trail. I'm guessing they put them up while they were still building the new trail last year and then never took them down?

There were still a few snow passes

I don't like sharing trails with horses

Sadly, everything looks less pretty in late morning than in the evening

The gambel oaks have been removed from the natural gas pipeline, but it looks like some are growing back. And there's sagebrush on the south-facing slopes.

The trees still don't have their leaves, so it was not shady at all

May is just a wonderful month. It's peak wildflower season (at least in lower elevations), and there are lots of pleasant smells, and it also is light late. I'm going on two trips this month, and I'm nervous for them (especially leaving my sweet Reggie behind!), but they should be good experiences.

I don't know, I don't have much else to say. Sorry if this was boring. This week I finished the candy from my Easter basket. One of my oldest memories, probably when I was four years old, is eating Easter candy one morning while watching cartoons, and I noticed that if I ate the ears off my Peeps Bunnies, they looked like snowmen. So now I think of that every time I have them.