Training Log Archive: Swampfox

In this photo, which more properly belongs with the February 20 note, you can detect lurking javelina danger in several of the cave openings in the background. Javelinas are surprisingly good climbers, considering all they have to work with are 4 little trotters.

In the foreground, you can see how the Monument alerts visitors by using full size card board photos of actual monument visitors to display various trail signs. The technique, while primitive, is still quite effective, and is in keeping with what the Ancestral Pueblans would likely have done.

On the day, it looked like winter yet felt like spring. Quite a wonderful area!

From publiken

C • full size card board 5

Skied Happy Jack with very nice conditions; 1-2" of new snow fell overnight and the grooming was quite nice. Had to cut it a little short in order to get back home and start preparing for Sunday, which I'm sure most people (well, maybe some? a few? anyone at all besides me???) realize is National Pizza Day--easily the most important day of the year! Or at least the most important day of this March.

(sidenote: actually it's not National Pizza Day at all, at least officially, but why quibble when it comes to pizza?

C • NPD 1

On our recent trip, Kris spotted a sign for Our Lady of the Woods Wiccan. How cool! I made a mental note; I don't know much about wiccans, but I have always thought it would be totally cool to have a few magickal (sic) skills. Unfortunately, further investigation reveals that correspondence courses are not offered, and the commute would be a stretch, so I will have to stick with skiing for the time being.

Went skiing at Happy Jack at noon. Full sunshine, so fine! The snow was warming up in the sun, but the fresh corduroy still felt pretty magickal, if you ask me.

Skied again at the end of the day, now on snow that was hardening up again. Definitely the start of spring type conditions--not that winter is apt to clear out for good any time soon.

Ran trails after skiing. There were some very fresh moose tracks, but spotting the moose itself was a more difficult task.

C • Havalinas 2

Excellent trail conditions at Happy Jack on what was a 100% lovely day--nothing but full blue skies from start to finish. Headed outside for skiing and running and soaked it in. If you wanna get to heaven you gotta....ski at Happy Jack!

It was a very confusing day, weather wise. Last night the weatherman promised dramatically colder weather was arriving and had in fact already begun to take Cheyenne right on down. So it was fair enough to expect that when I went out to get the newspaper this morning, it would be chilly. Except that it wasn't; it felt mild instead. In fact, instead of getting colder overnight, it had become warmer, and was 40F. It was still about that at noon. I starter to wonder. The logical thing would have been to guess that the weatherman had missed on the forecast, since weather is so notoriously unpredictable anyway at times. But instead, I illogically began to wonder if for some odd reason they had did a re-run of the weather from some other day on the newscast. That made no sense, but it was so mild out the temperature made no sense anyway.

When I later went up to ski, I was thinking that it felt a little bit cold considering it had been 40F in town. I was flabbergasted when a passing skier told me it had been 4F a little bit ago and was probably colder than that now. That's not so cold, unless you're comparing it to Big Bend a few days back, where it definitely wasn't 4 of anything.

Sometime after I had gone past the 2 hour mark, one of my fingers started to ache a little. I just figured it was a cramp and I was headed back anyway by that time, so I didn't bother with it. But when I got home and it still felt cold so that I did take a look, I realized there was a patch of frostbite on it. I was wearing old gloves, and I expect when I take a look at them, it will turn out there's a place where the glove wore through corresponding to the frostbit area. Bare flesh on aluminum on a cold day isn't the best combo!

It snowed the whole time I was out. Happy Jack is flat out plastered with snow now.

There were no good luck birds or even chickens out.

First look at what happened at Happy Jack while I was off on a brief sojourn, and it looks like a fair amount of snow happened. Quite mild out, so the snow was a bit slow (at least on my skis) and spring-like.

After the fine desert mountain running in Big Bend, the natural question was how to top that. Precious few possibilities existed, even considering parallel universes. Running nekkid at Allamuchyberry? Nope, for so many reasons. Simultaneously drinking two cans of ice cold Mountain Dew? Not really running, plus that would be hard to manage in any case, and would be messy if managed poorly. Elect a black President? Already been done.

Really after running down the list, there was only one obvious candidate: a trail run in the Gila Wilderness.

Which proved to be a total winner!

It didn't hurt that we had another perfect day, with mild temps, blue skies, and a light refreshing breeze.

We drove to the Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument, and besides being interesting in their own right, the walk to and through the cliff dwellings was a nice way to ease into a run. Various trail possibilities were immediately at hand, and I selected the Little Bear Canyon trail, with the intent of running out to the Middle Fork (of the Gila River) and back. 5 minutes in, I already knew it was a winner. Totally beautiful, many splendid vistas, impressive cliffs as the trail dropped into a sandy wash which became a tiny creek which became a slot canyon. The Middle Fork was also beautiful with crystal clear water, and abundant remnants of massive valley flooding from the rains last fall. In a lot of ways it reminded me of some of the rogaine terrain used up on the Mogollon Rim in Arizona, except that here there was more water, and then the underfooting was in general much more forgiving than the near ceaseless limestone cobbles and such that you end up spending so much time on top of over on the Mogollon Rim areas.

For pleasure, beauty, and total Wow! factor, another easy 10, and highly recommended.

Bonus points came into play when we spotted grunting javelinas on the drive out. Score! What a way to end the day.

Last run of the Big Bend visit was a foray up to Cattail Falls, which proved to be the unlikely wet spot it was touted to be. Shrouded in ferns, trees, and columbine and a beautiful pool at the base of the falls. Worthy of the side trip, which was short in any event.

Exited the area via Marfa, chiefly known for the world famous Prada art installation. Probably known for other things as well.

Didn't see one speck of terrain the whole time we looped through Texas that I would have wanted to orienteer in, but you never know what might have lurked just out sight. Anyway, orienteering wasn't the point, so it didn't matter.

As a side note, west Texas has a hell of a lot of cactus, and not very much water outside of those cactus. And that's for sure!

Stayed away from running today and did some desert hiking with Kris instead. Yesterday's Chisos Mtn outing reinforced the sore-from-running-downhills muscle soreness initiated by the fine running excursion in McKittrick Canyon.

At times the hiking verged on being overly taxing (another quite hot day that hit 93F in places we were) and so we took frequent photo ops as rest breaks. I can hardly wait to get my photo portfolio together and sending it off to all the big modeling agencies in New York!

The goal today was to take in a decent running loop in the higher elevations of the Chisos Mountains. Supporting the main goal were secondary but still critical goals of not falling and not running out of water. Not falling is always a good idea, but a great idea when trails are rocky with many potentially knee ending protuberances to fall upon. Not running out of water in a desert environment is an always worthy goal, and one which would need extra attention due to the fact that temps would still be unseasonably warm (for an unacclimatized swampfox) and since the unacclimatized swampfox would not be carrying any water other than what could be carried in his stomach.

All in all it translated into a take-it-easy lope with plenty of pauses to admire the flora and views.

The route followed was: Laguna Meadow trail-South East Rim trail-Boot Canyon trail-Pinnacles trail, starting and stopping at the Chisos Lodge area.

Well worth the effort, with spectacular views in all directions, and a number of plants you will see nowhere else in Texas. Highly recommended!

In spite of it being quite a nice day out, I suspect some would be dismayed by the amount of diffuse haze also revealed by the views. It made me wonder how much more might have been visible, and in detail, by the sharp sighted in former times with cleaner air.

All goals were achieved. Total time out on the loop was about 4 hr 20 min., which vastly overstates the amount of actual running time.

C • Big Bend... 19

I thought yesterday was hot, but I was wrong! Today was hot! It was so hot it was 94F, which is pretty darned toasty for mid-February, even by Texas standards!

With it that warm out, and 100% sunny-ness in all possible directions, running as late as possible seemed wise, so I ran from the Chisos Mtn. lodge up one of the available trails. That was really good from the standpoint of a lowering sun king and lengthening shadows, but not so good from a standpoint of there being numerous signs posted about the availability of local mountain lions, and what to do if you saw one. I kept wondering what about the mountain lions you didn't see?

In the end, it was just a pleasant excursion most of the way up the Laguna Meadow trail and back down, with no big cat encounters.

After the super fast road runner 15 minute tour (not really) of Carlsbad Cavern, it was time for some running, so we headed over to the kind of (not really) nearby Yucca Canyon trail. We parked at the bottom right where the road crosses a cattle fence into the park, and I ran up a jeep trail towards what was supposed to be Yucca Canyon. I had originally thought it would be nice to do a 1ish hour+ run, but it was late enough in the afternoon that there wasn't really time for that. It was warm. After a few minutes of running, I decided that, no, it wasn't warm, it was more like hot, and that I was really glad to not to be able to have enough time to run for an hour+ (glass already half full.) At the end of the jeep trail there was a loop denoting that that was the real trail head point, and it turned out that the official Yucca Mountain trail was...not so much. It really looked like nobody had been on the trail in recent years, with grass growing in the miniscule trail ribbon and prickly desert plants reaching in from all sides. That seemed like a *great* place to turn around, so I did. Upper 80s? Whatever it was, it was quite warm in the sun, and especially in February, coming from winter.

The goal was for a longish run today, at least 2+ hours, and so I found a suitable canyon trail to saunter up. The canyon has a fascinating, if improbable name history. It was originally named the Buddy Holly and the Crickets Canyon, and everyone was happy with that for a while. Until some A&R guy found out about it and contacted the lawyers, who in turn contacted the canyon with a cease and desist order, threatening to sue the canyon for everything it was worth, or, as they put it so colloquially: "Until your hiking pants are coughing up cactus."

That was harsh and scary.

At first the canyon wanted to fight back. But the wiser madrones got together and convinced the rest that they should just change the name, and that's how the canyon got its present name of McKittrick Canyon.

Even in February, the canyon was beautiful, ever changing with each bend, and pleasantly scented with a fragrant light lemony sweetness.

It was all but deserted, except for several hikers and one fish in the creek,

I've been to McKittrick before, and all I can really say is: highly recommended.

C • canyon 1

Went up to ski at mid-day, and the conditions were an easy 10! Great snow, some refreshing winds, grooming was underway while I was up there so lots of completely fresh corduroy to zoom around on, noon sun is always fun, and everyone I saw was very happy. Perhaps because of the San Diego State game last night?

C • Skiing 3

C • Crazy 4

Very happy conditions at the trails; looped around Summit Loop until it felt like I got enough climbing in to call it a day.

Feels like a warm up may be coming on.

Arrived at Happy Jack only to discover that right prior to my arrival, a passing snow squall had arrived and had deposited 1 1/2" of ultra light fluff on the perfectly groomed trails. Most people would look at such fluff and abandon all hope, and head home to watch Ice Dancing.

But that is not the cowboy way. I joined a gathering crowd of cowboys and cowgirls and we clipped on skis and skied and skied and skied until the moon was high in the sky and all the fluff was gone. Discipline.

Though snow coverage on the Happy Jack trails was again outstanding, it was nothing compared to the massive amounts of snow that were deployed into the parking lot overnight. There was probably more snow in the parking lot than the Olympic organizers have stockpiled in the enormous emergency heaps around Sochi. The parking was almost like one of those Oldtime fishing traps, where the fish can swim in but can't swim back out. Most people would blame the wind, but I feel you can not entirely discount clever design by snowsnake engineers.

Advantaged winds availed themselves of the chance to toss around the recently arrived snows of the last week more or less everywhere, but especially upon the vital roads and Happy Jack parking lot. Much road iciness and driver excitement! There was more snow on top of the snow on the already snow clad XC trails. Winter is really bent on showing how it should be properly done.

I have taken a solemn vow not to watch any figure skating or related activities during the Olympic, and so far my vow exists intact. Even though the televised broadcast is very sneaky, and keeps trying to insert figure skating activity amongst various of the actual sports. You have to be alert with the channel clicker ready at all times!

Temps warmed up into the "skiable with some glide" range by late in the afternoon, so by late in the afternoon I headed out with skis in hand, figuring in the worst case I could ditch the skis and go running if the snow was still too cold. But it wasn't. Funny to think that 1F is starting to feel so mild! If somehow I were to go straight from this to, say, I don't know, maybe West Texas, I would probably incinerate in a matter of seconds.

There were several other semi-human looking figures shrouded in the ice fogs, and some things that looked as if they might have been dogs or some other 4 legged creature.

Snow was everywhere. If the snow conditions are already dimed out and it gets even better, then how do you describe that? We have more snow than sushi. We have more snow than Sochi, too, I will guess.

The weatherman just said is was 18F in Laramie (at about 10 pm) and -15F in Greeley. Greeley is 33 degrees colder than Laramie and it's so low it's practically down in the Flatlands???? Chillin'!

C • Colder 4

Quite cold today, don't know if it got higher than -6F in town or not. When it's that cold, the skis have to stay home and I go running. Running wasn't bad as the air was nearly completely calm, and I had enough on to stay comfortable. I crossed the ski trails in several places, and saw that they were beautifully groomed and also--not surprisingly--practically untouched except for the occasional moose tracks.

Looked south from one vantage point to see how Colorado was faring, but it was hard to make out anything south of the border due to thick layers of ice fogs.

It's nice to have an occasional day like this for the variation, but I wouldn't want it this cold all the time!

C • Running 7

Skiing today could be described briefly: much snow, very cold. After doing one loop, I took a look at the parking lot: not even 5 o-clock, and only 3 cars. When conditions are bitter cold, it's easier--and safer--to stay out when other folks are around. So I cashed in my chips and headed home.

Probably going to be too cold tomorrow to even think about skiing. Brrr!

C • Fat Bike Best Practices... 3

Impeccable ski day. Temps in the mid-teens, some sun with new powder drifting out of the blue sky, everything groomed to perfection, and a second day with no wind. If only you could bottle such days...

Completely gorgeous day with 100% sun from start to finish, snow everywhere, and--almost eerily--no wind at all. More people were up at Happy Jack than I've seen any time this season so far. No matter where I skied and ran, there were people out doing stuff. Plus one moose, as a bonus prize.