Where's the Snow?

Missed the nice weather window on Monday as I had an early meeting and then the rain started, so it was a total rest day. And that is OK.

Tuesday, I knew it was going to be cold enough that it was likely to be icy, so I chose to start work early and duck out early enough to get in an afternoon run. Ryan decided to join me, and it was nice to have company! Very blustery, cold and still quite slick in the shaded spots. Ran out and back on Highland Green. (6.0 miles)

Headed out on Wednesday after dropping Sam off at school for late start. Ran out into Highland Green again and decided to run the loop. The first half of the back dirt road was fine but then it degraded into a fair amount of ice, which meant a fair amount of tiptoeing. (6.1 miles)

A bit of snow fell overnight, just enough to keep Thursday morning's run interesting. Another Highland Green foray, this time with some of the side streets thrown in for a bit of extra distance. (8.0 miles)

Friday morning, we were headed up to Great Glen for a night, as Sam had the day off from school. When we cancelled our overnight there during February vacation due to the storm, we were able to find a decent deal for this Friday in March and figured there would surely be enough snow up in the notch to make it a worthwhile visit. Wish we could have stayed another night, but it just got too expensive!

In any event, I knew I wanted to get in a run before we hit the road, so I got out at 6:00 am for a road run around town. Sunrise has gotten so early (well, at least until daylight savings hits!) that I missed the pre-dawn colors but the sky was still looking quite pretty when I crossed over the connector bridge. Calm and quiet, and mostly clear pavement. (7.0 miles)

Then it was into the car for the drive north! It wasn't a bad drive and we arrived around 10:30. It was fun to have the chance to catch up with some old friends in the outdoor center at Great Glen, but looking out across the fields, it sure was looking grim with a lot of bare ground. Definitely not what we were hoping for! Still, we were there so after our chitchat and getting changed, we donned our skis and headed out. Pretty icy and probably some of the worst conditions I've skied on there, mostly because it was early March and you just want better from winter!! 

We picked our way up to Great Angel Cabin, and Sam really did great, considering the conditions and the fact that all of our skiing has been on basically pancake flat terrain and there isn't a lot of that at Great Glen! There were a few falls and one bout of tears, but overall, she was a total trooper!! And despite the less than ideal conditions, we made the most of it, had some fun out there and it is always a joy to be in the mountains. (3.25 miles xc skied)

By the time we got back to the outdoor center (or before, ha!), we were all starving, so we quickly changed, got our gear back into the car and headed down to Jackson to the J-Town Deli for lunch. It was delicious! It felt very weird to be inside eating, but I was able to remain mostly calm about it 😉 Definitely just a bit of a mind shift after having worn my mask everywhere for so long now.

We contemplated skiing out onto the Ellis but I saw our friend Leslie's post that she had been out there earlier and would "100% not recommend," so we ditched that idea and decided to head back to the Glen House to see if we could check in and then get out for a short snowshoe. 

The hotel is quite nice, and of course, the best thing is the location and the view. Hard to beat!

We didn't get a mountain view room, but the room itself was definitely comfortable and above average in terms of niceness. After we checked in and weighed our options, we ended up heading back down into the field for a short snowshoe walk on some of the singletrack trails that wind along the edge of the bottom of the hill headed up Mt. Washington. The trail was definitely not well used, with a lot of debris and downed trees, but we enjoyed a nice tromp through the soft snow in the woods. I let Sam wear my Dions, so I was relegated to my old Tubbs snowshoes and let me tell you, they were heavy! WHEW! Ha! But making the most out of the conditions and the day we had, and it was good to get out! (1.37 miles walked)

Then it was back to the room to shower and head down to the Grille for dinner. Once again, very odd for me to be sitting in a restaurant inside, but we had a lovely time, the food was delish, the view was pretty grand and it was nice to be out enjoying the day with my two favorite people. Cheers to that!

Unfortunately, a storm moved in in the early hours and the predictions were for a lot of heavy wet snow up in the mountains. We most definitely did not want to get caught in that, so we decided to leave first thing and hopefully avoid most of the weather. It was raining when we left but that is better than snow for driving, so we felt like we made the right choice, even if it was kind of a bummer to not spend the day up there as we had originally intended. But with conditions as they were on top of the weather, it just didn't make sense. So home it was, and while it meant for a shorter trip, it was fun to get away and we will just have to go back to spend some more time up there!

After getting the car unpacked, laundry started and things put away, I headed out to do the groceries and Ryan headed out for a run. We got home at the same time and by then it was definitely quite a deluge. Yuck! But, I had planned for some activity on Saturday and I didn't want it to just be another zero day, so after lunch, I suited up in my rain gear and headed out for a walk on the powerlines. The 20 year old raingear is definitely not quite waterproof anymore 😉😆 and the trails are definitely not yet ready for running yet. Way too much ice on the main route, although things were dry up high. Came home wet, but warm, and glad to have gotten out to move my legs a bit. (2.0 miles walked)

The rain gave way to freezing rain and a bit of snow later in the evening, and overnight the winds picked up, which meant, I was in no way rushing to get out on Sunday morning 😉 Finally got myself out the door around 9:30. Bright, cold, very blustery and a little bit of everything in terms of conditions underfoot, from bare pavement, dirt and puddles to slush, ice and snow. Pretty much just wandered around randomly through Highland Green and the neighborhood roads with not a whole lot of excitement or glamour to the run. But got it done! (13.1 miles)

Wrapped up the weekend with dinner at Mom and Dad's and then it was time to get ourselves ready for yet another Monday!