Freeing the Trees (or What a Difference a Day Makes!)

We awoke to about 8" of fresh, heavy snow. It looked gorgeous all stuck to the trees, but was so dense it wasn't even falling off the branches in the wind. After a lazy morning, we decided to head to Bradbury for an afternoon adventure. We got geared up, packed our backcountry skis and boots in the car and headed out. Hadn't used the boots in a while - they were a bit dusty :-)

We weren't the only ones wanting to get out and play in the snow - there were several cars in the parking lot, and one happy dude had just returned from skinning up and teleing down from the summit. As we were looking for a more mellow afternoon, we decided to head across the street to ski on some of the east side single track.



With the dense snow and lots of drooping trees, the pace wasn't fast, but it was a fun jaunt in the woods. We headed out on Lanzo, ducking under branches and doing a bit of gliding with a lot of snowshoeing on big skis :-) Somewhere along Ragan, we lost the trail, so we turned around. Instead of backtracking the whole way back, we headed up on the old road up to the Snowmobile Trail.



Snowman had to work pretty hard on the old road to break trail, but we finally crested the hill at the junction with the Snowmobile Trail. What a difference a day makes!



There had been no traffic and the trail was mostly obscured by drooping trees. We spent a fair amount of time trying to free the poor, delicate saplings from the snow so we could continue on our way, or ducking through the ones we couldn't free up. While we didn't get in too many miles (a grand total of 3.18 in our 1:38 out and about), it was a fun adventure and a nice way to explore the park!