Ledges State Park

A few weeks ago I was invited to go hiking at Ledges State Park, just west of Ames, IA. We left early, early Saturday morning. The park was much smaller than was first envisioned, but we hiked around anyway. It's an interesting place, and I'm sure, judging by the colorful leaves on the forest floor, a really pretty place when the foliage is still on the trees. However, we were able to see some views through the bare branches. That is the Des Moines River flowing through in the background.

We saw evidence of beaver activity in quite a few locations. At one of the trail heads (which we thought was a good 5 mile loop but was actually about 1.5) there was a sign talking about bow hunting taking place to thin the deer population. We saw a lot of deer and one bow hunter. He probably wasn't too thrilled to see us because we were tromping through the leaves and making a heck of a lot of noise.

As we were leaving, there was this large fallen log across a small ravine. As I had not taken the dare to climb a tree earlier (it was really cold and my hands were rather numb and useless, it was all for safety, not for wussiness) I was able to redeem myself by crossing the log. It was quite exhilarating.

It was good to get out one last time before it gets too cold (like now) and most activity is relegated indoors.