David Malcolm and I planned a snow shoe hike on the Annette Lake trail but not only was the road to the trail head closed (expected) but due to snow equipment just off the freeway we couldn’t park anywhere.
So we drove a few miles west and parked just off the freeway at Exit 42 to see how far we could go on the McClellan Butte trail.
We didn’t get very far, but David went farther than I did. The snow shoeing was really challenging. The snow was 3 to 4 feet deep and slightly gooey. Very heavy stuff. Even with the shoes we sank more than a foot and with every step, the weight of the shoes plus the snow made movement quite difficult.
Plus, since I am not an expert snow shoer, I continually stepped on my own shoes (easy to do when the front shoe slides when planted and your rear shoe lands on the front one.) Every time it happened the pinned shoe came off and I fell into the deep snow.
I plead age, but when you are wearing snow shoes, and a heavy backpack, and have just sunk into four feet of snow, it is tough getting back up and then getting the shoe back on.
But I don’t want to make it sound like a Death March. It was a great workout and, overall, a lot of fun.
Snowy woods are beautiful, and the peaks to the north are stunning:
The forest is so awesome in winter!
A great outing. David and I were both suffering from a bit of cabin fever. All the lowland snow in the past couple of weeks has made it tough to get to the mountains. Even today we passed at least several dozen semis pulled over to the side of the freeway, chaining up to get over the pass.
Fun day and I was glad to get in a decent workout for a change.
