On a cold winter day we left the valley fog to hike in the Dogwood Marshes area.    The skies were a mix of sun and clouds and there was a rime frost on all of the trees.   With these hard-packed trails, we wore our hiking boots with microspikes attached, and we stomped our way along a series of trails in the high country forests.

The red-osier dogwoods were coated in frost as we wound our way south through the Anderson Creek dogwood marshes.

We followed trails up to mixed forests, then into aspen groves, and up to Douglas fir forests.   Some of the trails are marked with flagging tapes and signs, and some are user-made trails, so the best way to get to know the area is to explore a few times.

Routes through the lodgepole pines were usually single track trails.

Some of the hike was on hard-set tracks on double tracks and some on winding single tracks past marshes.  As we neared the end of our spike hike, we crossed the open marshes with the sun behind us in the south sky.