An Unexpectedly Hard Hike

I started at 7:50 am near Spokane's Fish Hatchery. Instead of going past St. George's School the trail began to climb way up and around. I never realized the hill went up so high but I was certainly glad for my Micro Spikes and my Goretex hiking boots. The ground is covered with 5" of snow that had warmed up yesterday and melted a bit on top. It made for slightly more work. I explored up a drive path instead of heading downhill per the trail marker and it took me to some high power lines. Then I turned around and got back on the trail proper and it was all down hill to the NW corner of the school property. You had to take a left at that point and the trail was fairly flat, goes past some nice rock formations and then comes out along Rutter Parkway near the Painted Rocks area along the Little Spokane River. All told it was about 7 miles with 800' elevation gain and loss. It had started to snow once I had turned around. I saw many whitetail deer and a pair of ravens in a tree top talking to me, as always.