Since yesterday’s snowstorm pretty much knocked our outdoor riding off the calendar for the next week or so, I decided to do a snowshoe hike today, instead. I called Curt yesterday while he and Jamie were drinking… err making 5 gallons of beer. I have found that when Jamie and Curt are up to their beer drinking... I mean making ways; they are the most receptive to my activity suggestions. This usually has a 50% success rate with these two guys and I was only able to convince Curt to join me today. MaryEllen and Helen have been doing these Sunday afternoon hikes by themselves for the last several weeks and the agreed to join me and Curt. I called Bonnie Welcome and she also was game for the hike. 

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It was another bitterly cold day today. There was a prediction for 3 or so inches of snow for this afternoon so I scheduled a snowshoe hike. At 6:00 there was Ed, Bonnie and myself so we headed over to the Coke Plant to do the hike.

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After the recent snowstorm I scheduled a snowshoe hike for Tuesday. Although there was lots of interest from many people only Ed Hoffmeister, and John Marcy showed up for the hike at the Coke Plant. We left the shop shortly after 6:00 and headed over to the parking spot at Main Street Millworks. After donning our shoes we hiked over to the trail. The snow was perfect for us and although there were spots where it was only 6 inches or so deep most of the trail had a foot or more of snow. We hiked over to the Hill of Doom and then up the Chute. I fell behind on the climb up the Chute but managed to keep going at a steady pace. Ed and John waited at the top of the hill near Red Rock and from there we hiked up the power lines. There was a good covering of new snow on top of the fairly deep base of frozen granular snow. We hike up the hill and then over to the water tank where we stopped briefly. From the water tank we headed down Luke and over to the Swamp Trail. This trail was pretty wet under the snow and our snowshoes kept getting ice balls under the cleats. We hiked along for a little way and we had to stop and knock the ice ball off our shoes before continuing. After crossing the stone wall we took a left and headed down into the swamp. Here we had enough high ground that we were able to stay out of the water. After climbing the steep hill we headed left to hike behind the Coke Plant. We turned left and crossed the brook and eventually we ended up at Five Points. We took the Mud Road to begin the return back to the start. There was basically a lake across the trail after we crossed the Water Tank Trail so we had to hike off into the woods to get around it. We continued down the Mud Road past Jack’s Pond and then we headed back out to the parking spot the same way we came in. We hiked the approximately 4.5 miles in an hour and a half. It was a nice hike (a challenge for me at times) and the conditions were great.

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After the record warmth of this week the snow pack has dropped precipitously so I thought that we should at least get out on what was left while we could. To that end I scheduled a snowshoe hike for Thursday. I knew that we would not be able to ride our mountain bikes on the soft snow, so a snowshoe seemed reasonable.

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I was busy in the ski shop with a customer when Tom Graney came in on his crutches. I finished up with my customer and the three of us then headed back into the shop. As we got into the shop the front door opened and there was a clatter and commotion coming from the front of the shop. We all rushed (OK, Tom hobbled!) to the front of the store only to see our very own Jam bursting through the door. 

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