On the second day of winter it was a cool, but sunny morning.    We arrived in the morning for a 3-hour hike through the Peterson Creek hills.   We started at the lower trailhead and hiked upstream to the canyon, then crossed the creek and climbed the west side of the hill, working our way to the rim, then uphill to the Tom Moore Trail.   We dropped back down to cross the creek, then followed a single track on the East Rim Trail.    Our hiking club leader took us on a series of winding trails up Tower Hill and back by different trails to the rim of the canyon.    We finished the hike by coming down the east side and back to the parking lot.     This was an 11.7 km route with 487m elevation gain (18, 267 steps).

The low-angled winter sun shone on Mt. Paul and Mt. Peter across the valley.

Some of the hike was on grassland slopes and benchlands and some was through douglas fir forests.

I had hiked another route in the same area a few days earlier and was lucky to photograph this rainbow on the way back.

Peterson Creek was my first area to explore back in 1976 and I still continue to hike trails almost 50 years later.