Cathedral Hills

I finally got myself over to the Cathedral Hills hiking trail system.  I have no idea why I haven't gone before now but today I decided I was sick (oh so very sick) of walking through neighborhoods on pavement.  I'd rather have a flat, barren, rocky, hot and desolate trial than a nice, cool, shaded neighborhood to walk on, that's how much I hate walking in "civilized" areas.

Anywho, the Cathedral Hills trail system is only 5.6 miles from my house (about 15 minutes away) and is right next to a golf course country club thing and lots of private property.  Here is a map of the trail system:  Clicky

I packed Conker into my Jeep and headed out around 12:40.  We got there shortly before 1 and hit the trails.  I'm not entirely sure where we went exactly, I didn't have a map of the trails on hand, but we were out there for a little under two hours.  I do know that we were on the Backside Loop, Outback, Hogback and a couple side trails in the system and explored about 5 miles of it. 

The scenery changed depending on if you were on top of, on the side of or at the bottom of a hill.  The trails also varied depending on intended use.  The horse trails were wider and often in flatter areas.  The hiking trails were smaller and in rougher areas.  All of them had trees and all types had varying amounts of cover.  Sometimes you were out in the open, other times in the middle of a dense forest.  There were a couple places on some ridges that gave you nice views of the surrounding moutnains.

I've discovered that I'm more paranoid about that's making sounds in the forest than Conker is.  I guess he can tell that what the animal is without having to see it, since I stopped at least two times and stared into the woods for the source of leaf rustling, only to have been duped by a squirrel on both accounts.  It was probably the same squirell...

We did see a couple other things and the most interesting one was this guy.

Wolf spider?

I have never seen one of these before, and he was in quite a hurry to cross the path.  He stopped when Conker and I thundered over him and just sat there.  I wanted him to move into the sun so I could get a better picture but no manner of gentle poking could get him to budge.  He did flare up in that menacing spider pose but still didn't move into the sun, and I decided to leave him alone after that since I am not sure if he was poisonous or not. 

Conker, I have found out, is a lazy ass.  He loves downhill and is fine with flat stuff but once the terrain begins to go up he lags behind and plays the drama card.  Even the smallest incline will get him to do this so I know he's not actually tired or anything, and as soon as the hill is over he perks up and turns back into his old stupid self again.

Conker was kept on-leash for the good majority of the hike.  It's a new area and there were many blind corners, but I did let him off on the wider more open section at the end of the hike.  I think he enjoyed it (except the uphill parts) and I'm going to try to go back there several more times this month.  It is only 15 minutes away and there are over 10 miles of trails to explore.  Still plenty more to do out there.