We sort of lucked out on Tuesday when the predicted day of ice and sleet ended up being a day of rain, on top of 3 or 4 inches of remaining snow and ice. This made for some Grade-A winter slop. It also forced me to retreat to the Not-So-Stankment to bust out another 3 miles of intervals on the treadmill, leaving some Grade-A sweat and uncontrollable projectile body fluids in my wake.
After two days and six miles of running intervals, I was determined to get into the woods on Wednesday for some miles and pics.
I was up early as per usual, got my gear together, and then proceeded to do some laundry and make Wifey breakfast as I waited for daylight to make an appearance.
Finally, I made it to the trails and was surprised to not be the only car in the parking lot; there was a truck belonging to a dude I see every so often out on the trails.
The parking lot was a layer of solid ice, with a layer of slush on top, and a layer of standing water on top of that. It was also foreshadowing of what was to come.
It seemingly took me forever to walk the .25-mile main path to the balls of the trails, and I entertained the idea of retreating back to Escape II to get my trekking poles for some extra stability, or drive the hell home and go to bed. I opted to just keep trudging through the slush. Idiot.
Rain is rain, snow is snow, ice is ice, and it’s ALL water, yet some days I marvel at just how wet things can get.
Predictably, there was little wildlife afoot, other than some squirrels and a couple of deer encounters, but after days out of the woods and shooting very few photos, I was happy enough with a couple of deer pics. Not to mention, the conditions were a tad too miserable to care that much.
Reflections in the slush.
As I lumbered along, I contemplated bailing a few times, but in the end decided to just keep on going as far as I thought was wise. I knew I’d never get six miles in due to my slow speed over the slush, as well as knowing that I was pushing the limits of my GORE-TEX hikers and did not want to find myself a mile or two from the car with cold, soaking wet feet. So, I skipped a trail here and another one there, and finished the hike with 4.66 miles. And it took me 90 freaking minutes!
Oh, and I did end up running into that dude on the trails. As we passed in opposite directions, I was amazed that he was wearing a hoodie, jeans, and Nike hi-top sneakers. As we approached each other, he said, “Ug, I should have worn different shoes!” All I could think to say was, “Yeah, it’s pretty sloppy!” I can’t even imagine how cold and wet his feet must have been!
I was disappointed with the on-going wintry slop, but happy enough to be in the woods taking some photos.
The next two days are allegedly going to have daytime highs of 47˚ and 52˚, so if nothing else, I’m optimistic things will improve soon.
Later.