After 72 hours without leaving the house, I embraced returning to the cold, snowy woods to lumber like an obese dog to a pile of its own vomit, complete with half-digested sock. It was pretty OK.

The temp was 7˚ as I hurled Escape II down the road, which sounds cold, but that’s 18˚ warmer than it was on Saturday morning, so I was fine with it.

Within the first mile, I got a shot of a downy woodpecker and was hopeful that this was a sign of good things to come, but it turns out I wouldn’t see another critter for about 3 miles, and when I did, it was complete disappointment—sort of.

I was going counter-clockwise to my normal loops, and the river was to my left here and there for a couple of miles. I was scanning the opposite shore, looking for eagles as I lumbered along, when I saw a large brown lump in the trees. It was hard to make out through the branches in front of me, so I grabbed my camera to zoom in to see what it was.

Well, as soon as I grabbed my camera, the lump flew away. Because that lump was a large, immature bald eagle! I was pretty pissed with myself for not making less noise, but within seconds of starting to berate myself, a full-grown bald eagle that I hadn’t seen took off as well, following the other down the river. At that moment, my poor eagle-stalking skills became laughable, and I chalked it off to pissing Ma Nature off by shunning her cold woods for three days. I now feel properly punished.

After that, the closest I came to seeing a critter was a large chunk of fur on the trail that was either remnants of something’s breakfast, or someone lost a merkin on the trail. Seems a bit cold to be out in nothing but a merkin, so I’m going with critter fur. To be fair, I also don’t know who wears a merkin in the first place.

After three days off from snowshoeing, I wasn’t moving all that quickly, and I really thought the conditions would be better. It didn’t help that I’m still adapting to my new hiking shoes, which, to tell you the truth, are frustrating me a bit. They feel fine, look fine, etc. However, no matter how hard I cinch the laces down for support, within a mile of hiking, they feel like they’ve become untied or they are wide fit, but they are neither. It’s a strange fit issue that I don’t understand. But I’ve worn them a few times now, so I’m stuck with the expensive fuckers. Never again, Merrell, never again!!

I would have liked to have felt better, not been bothered by my shoes, and gotten more images, but some days it just be like that. And I still got 5.30 woodsy miles in my feetz, and that’s a hell of a lot better than none.

Tomorrow’s hike-time temps look to be in the teens, which is going to feel like a heatwave after the past weekend’s sub-zero temps.

Later.