What's Next?: Sunday Snowy Sunday

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Sunday Snowy Sunday

Headed over to Bradbury this morning for a run, thinking I was more likely to find something slightly packed/tracked there than around here. I left the house around 7:15 and was treated to a beautiful sky on the drive over. There was only one car in the lot when I arrived - and it was Andy. He was just leaving, having finished up his hill repeats to the summit. Since I knew I'd have the trails all to myself, I figured I would head up to the summit - it was just such a pretty morning. There had definitely been some activity out to the Ski Trail which meant the trail was semi packed, but from there, it was only one set of ski tracks, so it was a bit slow going up that stretch. The light glimmering through the iced tree branches at the summit was gorgeous. The sky was a brilliant blue and there was no wind. Truly lovely.

Frosty summit

Blue skies

I retraced my steps the way I came and headed across the street. The Link had been tracked by a skier, so again, slow going, but once I hit the Snowmobile Trail, I found it tracked out by at least one machine. The snow was still soft, but I was able to pick up the pace a little bit anyway, maybe into 12:00 minute miles ;) I ran out beyond the park boundary to a little beyond the 2 mile mark on the snomo trails and turned around, as much of the low lying areas were still showing open water and/or were icy, so I had to do a fair amount of picking my way around so as to not end up wet and iced over.

Snowmobile trail

I wanted to get in at least 8 miles, so when I got back to Lanzo along the Link, I turned and followed the ski tracks out onto the singletrack. Once again, slow going and my feet were soaked through at this point, but I was having fun and the woods were gorgeous, so I continued on to Tuttle Road and then turned back around.

Snowy singletrack

Finished up with a few 1/10ths on the west side to get to a round 8.0 and called it a day. Nothing like snowshoeing to give you a workout! Especially the first snowshoe of the season in semi tracked, soft snow!

Frosted pigtails

When I got home, Ryan headed out himself to do some snowshoe course recon and after lunch, Sam and I got ourselves ready for our own snowshoe. Only fair that she got in some snow time today too! We headed over to the Cathance and enjoyed a wonderful hike down to the river. The day had warmed up nicely, there was no breeze, the trails were quiet, and we had a lot of fun. Of course, 0.8 miles took us 1:11 with only about 30 minutes of time spent moving, but you know :) That's hiking with a 6-year old! Walk a few steps, stop to talk about the animal tracks, walk one more step, talk to discuss the other snowshoe tracks, walk three steps, stop to eat snow, etc etc etc. Ha. We saw a lot of prints - snowshoe hare, deer, squirrel, mouse - and even saw a beaver floating (and eating, I think) in the river! We stopped and watched it for a while - very cool! Insanely beautiful out there today and happy to have the chance to enjoy it with her! As we were finishing up our hike, Sam said, "That was fun but tiring." Yup, that was the intent, kiddo :)