The Aspen Grove

Today was a day of hiking. I went up early in the morning for a hike at Happy Jack and we walked by my favorite aspen grove. These trees are just stupendous. No moose today, though.
Then I drove back out to Mom's. She's about 40 minutes out of town. My little brother made it in last night so we visited for a bit. I'm looking forward to getting up in the mountains with him tomorrow. As I was driving back in to Mom's the ranch at the end of the road was having a round up of the cows that surround Mom's property. It's a guest ranch and they bring the folks out and let them help round up the cows. That is the extra today.
After visiting for a bit I drove back to town to meet up with another friend to  hike on the new pedestrian only trails out on the Pilot Hill area. No mountain bikes allowed. It was an 8 1/2 mile day and I think I'm ready for bed!
I had mentioned I would give some more information about the Pilot Hill project. This was a huge land swap that keeps this land that is above our aquifer as public land where no building can occur. Here is some quotes from their website:
For more than a century this area served as a working landscape for the Warren Livestock Company. In the summer of 2017 the current owners of Warren Livestock LLC offered to sell a portion of their property to the people of Albany County with an agreed upon intent of maintaining the land as open space, providing wildlife habitat protection and non-motorized recreational access for the benefit of all of southeastern Wyoming.
The Laramie community rallied knowing that this land would directly connect Laramie neighborhoods to almost nine square miles of open space in the foothills and to over 65,000 additional acres of National Forest Lands in the Laramie Range.

Here is a link to the Pilot Hill Project.  I'm so happy I was able to get up there a couple times this trip to hike.