A Beautiful Day Up In Mount Charleston

Today, we took the family and three dogs up to Mount Charleston to frolic in the snow and just to get out of the Las Vegas Valley for a few hours.
Mount Charleston is about an hour drive from Las Vegas and it is nothing like the desert below.  It has snow, pine trees, birch trees, wildlife (In Las Vegas, the number 1 wildlife creature is the pigeon), water and a ski hill.
We took the dogs to the snow line and let them run and they had a great time.  For 2 of the dogs, it was the first time in snow.  The big dog, Brodie, who is a Border Collie and Akita mix, did snow dog angels in the snow, while the little dog, a Toy fox Terrier named Snowflake, just enjoyed running up and down the trails.  Our third dog, Sammy, a true mutt, just enjoyed running and playing.  They chased a jack rabbit through the woods, but the rabbit was probably mocking the dogs as it was faster and smarter because it was on it's home territory.
After a little while, we packed up to head to the ski hill and we drove about 1 minute and then we saw a beautiful brown wild horse.  There a few wild horses in the Mount Charleston area, but they are rare to see, almost as rare to see as the deer that live up there.  The horse let up get with 20 feet of us (the dogs were still in the car and they hated that idea very much)  The horse was beautiful, but a little skinny and I imagine this is what the Old West looked like 100 years ago with all the wild horses on the loose.
We then tried to walk on a trail, but my son, who apparently lost his Wisconsin balance, slipped and fell very hard on the ice.
That pretty much ended the day up on the mountain.  With gas approaching $4 a gallon, who knows when we will get another chance to go, but it certainly was worth the expense to go this afternoon.