Paradise Valley Conservation Area

For the last few months, there has been very little variety in the hikes I've been doing - either sticking to the neighborhood or driving to places I've been to many times before.  Hence the lack of blog posts and photos.  But that changed this week, when a couple of days ago I went to somewhere I've never been to before called Paradise Valley Conservation Area - east of where I live.  And what is surprising is that it is only about 20-25 minute drive away.  So why have I ignored here until now?  Perhaps these signs that greet you at the trailhead might be the reason - something that I also remember mentioned in my hiking guidebook:

Yikes, that is ominous.  But I doubt you'll actually ever have an encounter like that in real life.  But still added a certain amount of tension to the hike!  But no, it was fine.  I combined a number of the trails into a 5.5 mile loop - which with good signage and not a massive amount of elevation change was a quite manageable workout, apart from the last mile which was horribly wet, muddy and slippery.  It was fairly generic Pacific NW forest environment and not particularly photogenic - but did afford a certain amount of solitude, which is welcome.  I suspect I'll go here again - it's close enough to make it a reasonable exercise break from work.  But the first actual evidence of any big wild animals, and I'm done with this place.