No matter where you live, people will say that the weather is psycho, except maybe in Pittsburgh, where crazy weather means going more than 24 hours WITHOUT “partly cloudy” skies (which is a nice way of saying “it’s cloudy with a chance of rain, yinz guys.”).
Today, I finally hit my “normal” 30-mile weekly lumbering goal for the first time since the start of January.
The six weeks in between were filled with snowshoe slogs, gravel tramps, blizzards, wintry mental beatdowns, and too many beers, but it feels good to finally be back.
As I sit typing this dross on Sunday, I am trying to put out of my mind that earlier this week, I hammered out 3 lumbers in 3 days and got 18.5 miles in on dry trails before we got hit with a Thursday morning storm that brought 4 to 5 inches of heavy wet snow; the sort that breaks snow shovels.
Last week, as I tramped over the gravel roads, my gut feeling was that the local trails wouldn’t be completely bare of slippy, packed snow until Monday. However, since I only trust my gut when it’s hungry or has to poop, I attempted to hike those trails on Friday with meh-like results.
Fast forward here, please. >>>
On Tuesday, I did my second Gravel Tramp® in two days, completing a 7.66-mile loop and taking way too many photos in a hair over two hours.
Unlike Monday, there was no sun, and the temps hung at just about freezing. I saw a lot of great stuff (like Amish school kids playing soccer at recess!!) and a lot of fucked up shit, as you will see further on.
I wanted to share a few more words than usual in the photo captions for this post, so the format is a little different. Also, there is a photo towards the end that is pretty graphic, so I have blurred it. It’s up to you if you want to click it or not.
14.70 miles of Gravel Tramping® in two has my legs a bit sore today, so no lumbering today. Just some attempts at home repair that may or may not result in me having a breakdown before I reluctantly call Al The Handyman.
Enjoy the photos!
Later
I’ve never thought of myself as Nostrafuckingdamus. Still, I know a little about a lot of useless shit. One of those things is knowing that despite the vast (not really) estate of the Cul De Sac Shack being void of snow and two full days of sun (yes, hours of sunshine for the first time since December, I believe), the woods and trails would still be filled with a mixture of melting mush and hard-packed slippiness.
The trails are getting there, but not yet, and this week was a combination of stumbling around in the woods trying to stay upright while hiking through slippery melting snow, pounding out laps on the park’s dirt service road, a combination of both, or recovering/being bitter with frosty adult beverages while watching football—until Friday.
I thought that January broke me on Saturday when I looked out the window, saw heaps of rain-soaked snow, and said, “fuck it, I’m ‘running’ on the treadmill.” I was wrong.
No, January would save the real breakdown for Monday morning’s hike.
The outside was a mess of ice, melting snow, slush, and rain on Friday, and after 15 miles of snowshoeing already completed, I was a mess of aching knees, stiff calves, sore hip flexors, and an arthritic mind. So with that, I took Friday off to bask in the glow of the dank sky and catch up on some long overdue house shit.
The start of the week was awesome, with two 5-mile snowshoe hikes through the cold and snow. It was a great workout, and it felt awesome to be back outside after two days spent goofing off indoors