Winter hiking...

Rick and I took advantage of going for a little hike on Saturday before the

 arctic blast struck southern Minnesota. It was a beautiful afternoon,

 warm enough to shed our coats and gloves half way through the hike. 

We chose to hike at Quarry Hill Nature center.

We just picked a trail and off we went.

To add a little challenge to our stroll, we ascended up to this high ridge

 We could see the nature center from where we were (note the pink arrow), now we just had to figure out how to get back down there. It wasn't clear by the trail markers, but with the help of our 

*"hiker angel" we found our way back down in one piece. 

That was one steep descent on the slippery white stuff.

 At one point we hiked up a path that led to a neighborhood bordering the park.

 I snapped a photo of this unique tree fort, someone was very creative.

*hiker angel - on three different occasions while trying to navigate our way back down the ridge, we encountered a man, cigar in one hand and a dog on a leash in the other. He helped direct us back down to the start of the trail in a safe and timely manner. On a side note, we would have made it down just fine, just maybe not in the most timely manner.  Dusk was upon us so it was nice to have a "little hiker angel" to guide us in the right direction.