Yesterday, it assaulted us with all manner of powdery floof, and as I looked out the window this morning upon arising, I may have uttered (okay bellowed), "FINALLY!!!"
You see, the weather has just not been snowshoe friendly this year. We get a bit of snow, then it warms up, then it rains, then in freezes, wash, rinse, repeat. This morning though, this morning there was several inches of floofy powder to tromp about in, and even better still, the sun was out.
So, I did a bunch of my morning chores, sipped a lovely brew of cocoa coffee, and then looked at the Corg and said, "You want to go walkies?"
I really need to film the walkies dance, it's pretty dang cute, but alas, I did not get footage of it, suffice it to say it's basically a fox looking cowboy corgi prancing about and telling me all sorts of things. Namely, heck yes, silly human, of course I want to go walkies!
So, after applying said into the out accoutrement for a bit of a meander in the snow and woods, I looked very much like a twelve year old kid who was heading out to have a snowball fight. I am pretty proud of the durability of my 24 year old ice blue Columbia coat and 26 year old Smurf blue snowboarding pants that I was bestowed by my stepson, they both have served me well through many a snow foray.
After a few minutes to secure the snow shoes and adjust my poles, we were off! Now, breaking trail in snowshoes is a workout, and since I had already lifted weights today as it is a Wednesday, I felt a bit of that interesting feeling one does when they are medium aged and about to engage in some activity that is going to make me feel even more medium aged the following day.
I cared not in that moment, I was SNOWSHOEING!
Our first stop was the dam. It's so nice to see it flowing properly instead of overflowing due to an excess of moisture. We then moved on and got distracted by frozen lake views. I swear it is so beautiful here, every time of the year.
The Corg and I giggled a bit at the brazen deer prints out on the ice. You see the lake hasn't completely frozen over yet this year, that deer had some big tecnicals on it to walk across the expanse like that, even if I am pretty sure it was a doe.
A bit of puffing and trail breaking later, we arrived at another view I just had to snap pictures of. I absolutely adore the contrast of snags sticking out of the frozen water in front of the moody mountains and slightly tempestuous sky. Another storm was on its way, so things just looked so fantasy novel worthy.
I meandered my way down to the Eagle Tree, the corg smartly deciding to walk in my freshly broken trail. I will admit, that my heartrate got to a nice cadence after a bit, snowshoeing is just the best. I also had an added complication that I wasn't expected. Did I say complication? Perhaps a better word is challenge. We've had so much moisture this fall and winter, so there is still flowing water everywhere, and even though I did my best to hop across it, it still made huge slush and ice balls that stuck to the claws of my snowshoes. It took me a few minutes to figure out why my legs were so dang heavy but once I did I just made sure I stopped every so often to tap my snowshoes on a tree trunk to dislodge the ice and continued on my merry way.
Nothing eventful happened on my hike, other than I probably annoyed the Corg as I stopped and took quite a few pictures. It was just so easy to get distracted by the scenes of winter beauty. Plus, when one is breaking trail, sometimes a slight breath catching reprieve is in order.
I can't wait for my next foray!!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's thankfully not dropped in the powdery snow or running water at any time today, iPhone.