I haven't been riding my bike to work much at all lately. Instead I just go to work, walking the dogs in the early AM or heading up to the hill to get some Nordic in before or after work. Being a 9-5er kinda sucks up the entire day so most of my exercise is in the dark these days.
Noticeably lighter today at 6:30am, I got up to 18 degrees outside in Cold Valley Ranch. After lolly gagging around, getting the dogs out to the potty yard, I rode up to the dirt road I ride into town and it was at least 15 degrees warmer up there - maybe 200ft higher than our house. Then i get to Boulder, 20 miles and 3000 vertical feet later and lower and it's over 50 degrees at 9am. Yes, it's Feb 4th and the high today was over 65 degrees. Tomorrow's high is supposed to be 69 degrees. Yes, that's what I just wrote. WTF?!?! I'm all for riding my bike in nice weather and all but when I can ride trails at the beginning of February and have only knee warmers on on my ride home from the bus at 6pm, well that's just F-ed up. An old timer here, 65 years in Redneckville nearby, said this is the windiest winter he can recall. If this is a La Nina year, i officially proclaim that La Nina's suck. They're apparently characterized by dry weather, lots of wind, and above average temperatures. The snow that does fall gets blown away and makes for some pretty sucky skiing and severe avalanche danger in the Backcountry.
Yep, where's my pacifier?! I moved to the high country of Colorado for SNOW! At least we timed the Hut trip nicely! (Blind luck) It was a great birthday present for me - getting 14" of new snow the night before we get to the hut so I can get powder turns on my 36th year. Very nice.
On my Sunday tour up around Kansas Knoll, it was the worst snow conditions I've experienced in February - EVER. Breakable crust is an understatement! My Grand Traverse setup was way undergunned. I hiked at least 2 miles on a road that is usually snow covered...it is currently stripped to the bare soil. Breaking through on each step of the approach I finally turned a corner and survived my way down to Wooly Gulch. The one plus was that I found "Limberpine Glades" - a 28 degree open glade with 600ft vertical to ski when there is actually good snow. On the way back, I was trying to bypass the dirt road approach and hit the train tracks back to the car so I wouldn't have to take my skis off again. (Foreshadowing: I should've gone back to the dirt road.)I found some poor sap's skin track up from a previous day and followed it down into the gulch. What an idiot. (Me and him.) I figured, "he MUST know where he's going!" How many times have i said that to myself? That's like someone following my track and thinking that exact same thing. I pity the fool who follows my skin track. (Sorry to anyone who has tried that before!)
This skin track was so convoluted and just overall messed up that I had a hallucination that maybe it was my skin track from a few days ago and I had actually fallen asleep in the backcountry, woken up and forgotten I had laid this thing down.
Bushwhacking through north facing doghair lodgepole and willow along partially flowing creeks that you couldn't cross or risk falling into the running water (yes, it's Feb and there's flowing water!). After a couple of hours going downhill (yes, DOWNhill) I ended up at the train tracks. And of course, a train comes by so i have to skin back up away from the tracks. Didn't matter, as there wasn't enough snow along the sides of the tracks to ski back the car anyways. I think this is one of the only tours I've actually WANTED to end.
Finally back at the car over 4 and a half hours later and only a total of 6 miles covered...well, let's just say it was funner in hindsight.
2 comments:
I haven't done a ton of skiing this year due to the lack of snow. But, usually, I tour out my back door with my dogs almost every day. I take the opportunity of having all the obstacles covered in snow to wander off trail.
The really funny thing is how many people follow my wanderings. In one case, I wandered up a hill, through some seriously dense pines, and then circled a tree to check out the pine beetle pitch tubes on it. Someone later followed my tracks with snowshoes (aargh), including circling the tree. On an other day, I met a snowshoer who was trampling my tracks who was complaining about how they wandered. What did he think - that I was a paid trail-breaker or something?
But, I've done the same thing many times in places that I don't know very well. I assume that the person laying the tracks was going somewhere great and follow. Sometimes, they were going somewhere great... but usually they were lost just like me.
That's pretty funny, especially the tree circling part. "There must be something in this tree that I can't see!"
I think it's hilarious that people follow other's tracks, but I still do it so not sure why I find it so funny! I think, "they must know about a secret powder stash that i don't know about!" ...but they're usually just wandering around just like you and me.
Post a Comment