Tower Creek Trail

After church, Suzanne, Tricia, Sandy, Karen, Rebekah, and I drove out to the Tower Falls area to go hiking. Along the way, we saw a black bear that had climbed a tree:
Once we arrived at Tower Falls, we parked at the campground and started the Tower Creek Trail. It was not well maintained, and we even had to cross the Creek over a log jam:

The 1988 forest fires in the park covered this trail area. There is a lot of new growth restoring the forest. We climbed over countless dead and down trees on the trail.

At the beginning of the trail, we saw a skeletal remain of an animal that was probably taken down by wolves. Or, this animal didn't survive the winter or died of natural causes.

The only living creature I saw was a marmot hiding under a log:

We walked by 3 HUGE racks of elk antelers. This is the first one we walked by:

There were a couple ponds and a wild strawberry patch along the trail:

The second rack we walked past:

This is our view at lunch:

And the third; these antlers are quite heavy. Don't know how they manage to carry those things around!!! This one was definately the largest.

We walked 2.8 miles to the end of the trail, and then walked back out. The view coming back was pretty:

The trail was 5.6 miles total. On the drive back, we saw another black bear along the road:

And my personal favorite, baby bison! They are so darn cute and spunky: