Izzy hiking shots

Izzy and James

 

 

She's loving all the sounds and smells on our hikes. You're not in Kansas anymore Izzy! (literally, she was a stray found in Kansas...)

She's a bit camera shy. She is running back to hide behind me from the evil iphone.

Visiting Monkey Meadow for the first time. A Monkey-in-training for sure.

This little girl is tiring me out! I've never seen such spunk and energy.  When we leave for 5 minutes she acts like it's been 5 years. Izzy now goes on 2 long hikes in the woods a day and gets to play in the yard as much as we have the time to let her.  I wish I had that level of energy to keep up. After snowshoeing out back and trying to keep up with her, I'm worked, and it's only been a week!  But the pure joy exuding from every one of Izzy's pores is inspiring. Soon, we'll have to try some ski-joring so I can glide when she can pulls my sorry ass!

Surprise pow day

and i had totally different plans today but after the txt from Heyride saying "10-inch rule. Going to ski Ptarmagin Hill. Want to join me?" I knew I had to go. (His work has a 10" rule--if it snows more than 10 inches overnight, you get a free powder day.)
Lucky for me that I can just work later, so that's just what I did. This is my last winter in Ned so gotta take advantage of it!

The road up to the spot was not plowed after the big turn. Luckily someone else had broken trail. We made it up to find three other big trucks up there parked a 1/4mile from the main parking area. One dude attempted the last leg, only to somehow turn around and park down below.  The Spidercouple was there, ahead of us on their swanky new DPS fat skis! BadCop, who has new twins, even showed up with a friend at the bottom of our first run. Good fun, good snow. I'll definitely miss this place.

Meet Izzy

Izzy is our latest addition to the family. She's almost two (but i'm not so sure...she's a puppy), is an all black shepherd mix with a partially curly tail so we think husky because of that and her size = 50lbs.  She is extremely cute, but shy of the camera (or iPhone) so getting a picture of her is insanely hard. You have to take pictures while she's not looking...

looking out the window at the yard where I'm with the Guppies.

I will post more photos when I get them but she's keeping us very busy with lots of hiking, running, yard play.

Winter Singletrack on the Fatbike

It's a long video, and jolty at times, but jiminy crickets...what an awesome ride! Not the longest ride, but that's expected on snow, on a local trail that I've never ridden a bike on in winter - nor COULD ride without my beloved Fatbike.  

(PS- If you don't like weird instrumental 'rock' music (the band is Painkiller), you may want to turn down the volume. But if you do, turn it up! PPS- There are 3 reasons I use this type of music on my videos: (1) i love this music, (2) and they are long enough songs to match my video lengths, and (3) Youtube or whomever monitors Youtube videos doesn't have restrictions on most of my obscure music selections.)

Ptarmagin Hill backcountry Saturday

It's great when you can started skinning at the crack of 2pm and still get fresh tracks.

Heyride skinning, photo by the Powers.

Me skinning, photo by the Powers

 Video with the GoPro (again) and music by Deep Turtle randomly patched together.

Sunday in the backcountry

Five of us headed up Sunday and hit Prospector Gullies, one of the safest spots we know of after a big dump.  It's pretty much the most consistently best pow turns anytime actually.  They *only* got 8-10" of cold smoke (super cold fluffy snow) and that was perfect since we could actually get speed and make lots of turns.  One track skimmed down the side of the run but other than that, we had fresh tracks on this amazing mostly bluebird Colorado day. More pics from Krugy will show up eventually as he had his sweet huge 85mm camera out in force but for now here are my point and shoot camera shots as well as a go-pro movie that was more fun to create than edit. 

On the drive up, the local old Schoolhouse with a new facelift.

Top of the skintrack

Looking south towards James

Krugy

JHK

 

Webster

 

Webster and JHK

Dumpage

It just snowed a ton in Ned. It just started snowing when I went for a fatbike ride at 5:30pm on Thursday night on my way over to meet the rest of the Steel*Wool'ers at BC pizza for beer and food. By the next morning we had 22" at 7am on the deck. Then by noon we had a total of 27".  It kept snowing until afternoon Saturday! This storm dropped more snow in any Feb in the last 100 years.

Here's some pics and video of the Friday ski tour. We were lucky enough to get the local 'manager' to take a run at the trail with his snowmobile since we were first trax.  Breaking trail through near 30" of snow on the 1st day on skis in two months is...well, you know, hard.

rip curl.

this is the "Designated Travel Route" in case you were wondering.

Powers and Heyride at the top of run 1.

Heyride heading down.

This was too much snow for this slope angle (25 degrees at most), but it was freaking fun nonetheless. We had to get momentum on the skin track then jump off to get turns and then head back to the skin track to get more speed again.  The 2nd and 3rd runs were much easier and funner than the first because we could use our tracks from the 1st run to get speed.

Here's my first real video from the GoPro.  Not very exciting but watch for my bail.
I swear, the amount of editing I have to do makes me want to be VERY selective on what I film and what I don't!

The best and worst of Fatbiking

The best:

• Mountain biking continues in wintertime. 
• Um...new gear!!
• You ride more than you think without going over the bars (for the most part).
• Skidding is fair game -- Surf the downhills!
• You get first bike tracks most everywhere you go.
• You get good at 'quick dismounts' and cyclocross remounts. Usually in quick succession!
• You get good at riding very slow and un-weighting the bars.
• You are instantly cool riding a Fatbike.  Everybody just gawks at you at you and says "...nice tires!"
• It's never felt so good to clear a slight uphill.
• A 10 mile ride seems long.
• You get to ride your bike on snow!!
• You've never been so excited for 2" of fresh snow on hardpack.
• It opens up a whole nuther world of adventures.

The worst:

• You have to hike more than you think.
• If you try to shoulder your bike, you may break your collarbone.
• The bike is not flippable. However, you are.
• You always think "it'll get better around the next turn", but it usually doesn't but you keep postholing anyways.
• You rely on "the others" packing down the trail so you can ride it.
• Your bike is going to be one heavy rigid bike.
• A 10 mile ride seems long.
• When you push your bike in snow, the front tire tends to act like a plow instead of a ski tip.
• You will dismount a LOT, usually quite athletically, and tip over into the soft snow on the side of the hardpacked trail you were trying so hard to stay atop. (My favorite move is when you stick your foot out to stop your slow-motion fall but you sink into the snow anyways with said foot and fall over, filling your pogies up with snow.)
• Once you go Fat, it's hard to go back! You always want to go fatter -- regular MTB tires look absolutely puny now!

A section of the new Sugar Mag trail.

Each time i go ride my Rotund-cycle, it's like i relearn how to ride a bike. It's a different type of riding, not dissimilar to riding a singlespeed for the first time. Not better, not worse, just a different style of two wheels. Similar to a singlespeed, you have to learn to keep your momentum for the uphills, ride smoothly so the rear wheel keeps its traction, and well...be OK with hiking a lot. No way around it...hiking (or postholing?) is part of snowbiking, at least around these parts.  But what it gets you in frustration gives back 10-fold in the experience of being out on singletrack you could never ride this time of year, and cruising snowpacked dirt roads that are the approaches to your favorite backcountry ski spots. What they lack in agility they return in exploration potential.

My tracks next to a bobcat's tracks heading up a nearby summer 4x4 road.

Cars drive this in summer to get to a popular trailhead, but in winter it's a whole different place.

I usually only experience winter in the woods on skis or snowshoes.  I've been skiing a total of ONCE this year so far...yes, that sucks, but it's sucked for snow.  The fatbike has given me that exploration bug again to go out and try and ride all my old favorite trails in the wintertime and experience them in a totally unique and different way.  To be honest, I've become somewhat ho-hum with the summer riding in my area.  Yes, I know, I'm spoiled, but after living and riding bikes here for 20 years, I just 'know' it all so well! Ya know?

Not much snow on the south-facing slopes but in the shade higher up I was walking a bunch.

Building and riding the Fatbike enabled me to ride these trails in winter (even if it's mostly just the 4x4 roads) and have a different kind of fun on them all over again - like I was finding them for the first time.

The turnaround point. I had been walking and postholing for about a half-hour so I just called it quits before making it to my destination (the wilderness boundary).