52 hike challenge #21

Yesterday, Rose and I decided on the spur of a moment to go on a hike together while Mike was busy doing some Saturday chores around the house. I've been meaning to explore Mount Helena City Park for awhile, so yesterday seemed like the perfect day! The good news is that's a huge park with lots of trails, but the bad news is that the number of trails made it difficult to choose a path. :) 

After reading several reviews on AllTrails and TripAdvisor, then scouring the trail maps from the Prickly Pear Land Trust, we came up with a plan to go up the Prairie Trail and down the 1906 Trail.  I had the PPLT map downloaded on my phone plus took the above photo at the trailhead, but it still felt weird to hike without an actual hard copy map in hand! Apparently I'm an old-school hiker. 

Even with the relatively gradual (for a mountain) incline of the Prairie Trail, it was still a tough workout! Thankfully Doug has never learned to stop pulling when he is on leash, so Rose and I were able to get a little boost up the hills from him. :) Even so, our hearts were pumping and we were pretty winded by the time we got to the summit.

Water, turkey sandwiches, and sun chips never tasted so good!!

The views were spectacular! We could see all of Helena below us, plus the mountains in every direction. It was really stunning.

We wanted to take our selfie at the actual summit (we ate our lunches in relative seclusion about 20 feet from the top), but the actual peak was crowded with a bunch of other folks  (all keeping >6 feet distance from each other, thankfully) enjoying the view. And Doug started whining that he couldn't play with the other dogs so we started back down the trail fairly quickly. 

Our original plan was to take the 1906 Trail down, but a large family CARRYING A BOOMBOX headed that way. UGH. Forcing your music on other people in the great outdoors is one of the most obnoxious things you can do, IMHO. There was no way I wanted to listen to their crappy music when I was trying to enjoy the sounds of nature, so Rose suggested we take the Powerline Trail down instead. I warned her that it would be pretty steep (about .6 miles down, as opposed to the 1.75 miles or so that it had taken for us to go up), but she said she was tired to so she wanted the fastest route.

Steep doesn't even begin to describe it! Even her young knees were burning by the time we got back to our car. I was MUCH less appreciative of Doug pulling me DOWN the steep terrain, although he certainly couldn't understand why I seemed to appreciate his pulling earlier but not then. Oof-dah!

In the end we had some good mommy-daughter bonding time, despite (or perhaps because of?) our constant complaining. Last night as I put my feet up back at home, she even asked if we could go on another hike today! We'll see, I said, we'll see...

52 hike challenge 2020
1. 1/1/20 - 2 mi - out and back
2. 1/5/20 - 4.25 mi - neighborhood loop
3. 1/11/20 - 2 mi - out and back
4. 1/19/20 - 4.25 mi - neighborhood loop
5. 1/26/20 - 4.25 mi - neighborhood loop
6. 2/1/20 - 4.25 mi neighborhood loop
7. 2/2/20 - 2 mi - out and back
8. 2/9/20 - 2 mi? - sledding, and to/from the neighbors
9. 2/15/20 - 4.25 mi neighborhood loop
10. 2/22/20 - 1 mi? -  Lincoln Sculpture in the Wild
(there were at least a few more in here that I, alas, forgot to record)
11. 4/5/20 - 2 mi? - up to the highest peak in our neighborhood
12.  4/10/20 - 2 mi? - down a new drainage next door and back around by the gardens
13. 4/12/20 - 2.5 mi - out and back 

14. 4/18/20 - 1 mi? - down an old creek bed and back up
15. 4/22/20 - 1 mi? - down to the parking lot to pick up my car
16. 4/26/20 - 2 mi? - over to "Pride rock" 

17. 5/1/20 - 2 mi? - over to "Pride rock"

18. 5/2/20 - 4.25 mi - neighborhood loop

19. 5/3/20 - 1.5 mi - to the neighbors' horse pen and back

20. 5/10/20 - 2 mi? - Tower Rock State Park

21. 5/16/20 - 3 mi - Mount Helena (prairie trail up, powerline trail down)