As winter retreated, the south-facing lower hills dried out.    By  the end of the first week of February, the open grasslands benchlands and hills had damp trails, but not much mud.    We hiked from a trailhead on the southeast corner of Batchelor Hill onto a combination of double tracks and single tracks going west.     The route continued on trails in a large clockwise loop around Batchelor Hill.

An old double track winds through sagebrush grassland hills for about half of the route.

On the northwest side of Tower Hill is a track which goes through a wet meadow I have been calling Batchelor Pass for decades.    Mountain bikers call this trail Kow a Been Here.

On the north side of Batchelor Hill, we turned onto a single track trail (named Shady Glen) which parallels the fenceline between Batchelor Hill and Batchelor Lake.

The whole hike was 8.2 km, taking about 2.3 hours.   This is a route we do in shoulder season most years, but usually a month later.