Walking again on the River Trail

 

 

    As we do walking for exercise, Wendy and I have been retracing our steps from several years ago, as I have gained strength to walk longer distances.  We have gradually increased the distance we can walk, we have gone back to the Spanish Fork River Trail and especially love the walk that begins at what we hade heard called the tree road going east to the park over a mile and then back.
    The city has been upgrading the trail and has just completed some trails coming down into the bottoms and has built a parking lot with restroom and grass at the river at the tree road now which is now called Poplar Road.
    We have had two mornings when we have run into David and Katie as they have been out for a run.
    There were two places on this stretch that we were attracted to in earlier years:
1) The home of the Rock Chucks.  Here is a picture of the river bank reinforced with big boulders that used to be the home of colony of Rock Chucks or Yellow Bellied Marmots. We would stop and watch them pop their heads out of holes among these rocks.

Looking the other way (west), one morning we saw a Rock Chuck mama and her babies crossing the trail right in the spot ahead coming back from an expedition in a corn field just across to the north.

2) A Beaver colony.  There was a time when we discovered a bunch of little trees that appeared to have been gnawed off by beavers at about this spot.  We looked further and found a palce in the River itself where it appeared that these animals wert starting to build a dam.

Unhappily, it appears that persons responsible for the river and the trail could not tolerate the presence of these beautiful wild things, and must have trapped or destroyed them

Here’s something else we are noticing.  We see lots and lots of people on the new trail system, running, walking, bicycling.  I said to Wendy, “It must be that Latter-day Saints are aren’t exercising, because most all of the people we see are in shorts or sleeveless tops” Wendy said, “No, I think their just all dressed in exercise clothes.  Its the new practice.”  

Could that be?