Training Log Archive: Swampfox

First bike ride of the summer. It looks like it is about time to replace the chain and all the toothed things it engages, and we will see if that which revs up my bike will also help rev up the economy.

Earth moving machines were at work building up earth walls on the east side of the river. They better hurry up.

2 more hedge plants bite the dust.

The wind is winning again today, this time forcefully out of the western horizons, just to mix it up a little.

Twin Boulders. If yesterday was windy, then how to describe today? Uber-windy doesn't come close. It was flat rippin' across the range. Pretty sure I've never been orienteering in windier conditions before. The highway warning sign down in the valley said 55 mph, but I am betting the wind was bigger where I was up top. Pretty nice otherwise; you just needed to maintain a good grip in the map at all times.

We definitely need a few thousand more wind turbines around town.

Steady wind dimed out of the SE. Ridiculously strong; it's been flowing through ever since about midnight or so last night with no letup. Actually so strong it seemed reasonable to be a little worried about some branch popping off a tree, or a sign being blown off a building or something. Would have been a great day to do some mapping, but no way in wind like this--it would have been futile.

Ran with Ted around Twin Mountain. Mix of fog, sunshine, clouds, mist, and, of course, snow. Would it really be Memorial Day Weekend without snow?

A sighting of the sun got me excited and I dropped everything to hop on my bike. Not even 5 minutes later, a cloud got in between me and the sun, and that was that.

Nice that I had no leg soreness today at all, despite running hard yesterday. Probably it was the pizza medication.

Before going out, I did a brief chain cleaning. I keep this to an absolute bare minimum, mostly so as to not raise unreasonable expectations on the part of my bike, which could only lead to crushed hopes and repeated disappointments. You haven't seen unhappy if you haven't seen an unhappy bike.

Still lots of snow--and even fresh ski tracks from today--up on the trails at Happy Jack, but there are glimpses of bare ground now here and there. A few days of sun and warm temps would make a big difference now.

Biked down to the river to take a look. It's high, but not notoriously so, and so far it is not threatening to cut the interstate.

The snow streak may have ended, but not the moisture streak. It rained some yesterday, and today is already in the bag as well. Tomorrow and Wednesday are also looking very promising.

4 more hedge plants removed. It's hard to be objective, but even so this has to go down as an inspired effort.

It was light sleet for only about the first five minutes, so I got off light.

Lots of snow up top. Too much, really, to even run in, as it was pretty soft. But some rhino tracks on the ski trails were just firm enough to keep me up on top and allow some running instead of what would have been snow pulsing at best. If the sun should ever return, there will definitely be some runoff.

The typical May snows have just started reasserting their powers a little while ago. Is it too soon to get started on the 2011-2012 ski season?

Another hedge plant bites the dust (mud, today.)

Late in the day things moderated and the sun even was out in bits and intervals. It was all good except the part where I got passed by a mountain biking dude on an uphill street section. That was discouraging. I didn't think stuff like that would happen until my 70s or 80s, and here I am only in my 50s.

But then I looked down and discovered the problem. I had once again managed to uncleverly tie my shoes together. Mercy! I'll get it right tomorrow. Maybe.

No snow stuck in town. It looked like the snowline was maybe 1000' higher or so, to judge from Pilot Hill.

Ran up to, and through, the snowline. Then I ran back. Saw nobody after I hit the trails.

The weatherman called for a rain/snow mix today, and he was....right! In all aspects.

There are also flash flood warnings for many counties, including Albany County. But how does snow create flash flood conditions? This bears more analysis.

Buena Vista remains as one of my all-time favorite orienteering venues. Super good terrain in all the best ways. Too bad that low clouds meant we missed on the views of the peaks across the Arkansas Valley, but there will be other times in the future.

Light warm-up as prep for the Night-O at Buena Vista. The warm-up went so well I decided to quit while I was ahead and passed on the Night-O. Felt like one of the best decisions of the decade at the time, but one day later I am upgrading it to one of the outstanding decisions of the millennium.

C • snow night-o 6

Red - Splits

Getting down to Denver per plan was not as easy as it should have been--largely because the interstate was closed again this morning, due to snow, of course.

The landscape was back to a snowy white. Funny to see how the meltwater coursing over the slickrock and pooling in places reminds me somehow of tidal pools--even though the setting could hardly be more different.

The snow was coming down with decent amounts of horizontal energy on the way back home.

Legs a little sorer this morning, but not bad.

2 more hedge plants bite the dust. I am trying to avoid even estimating--much less performing an accurate census--how many hedge plants there are left to go, on grounds that it could possibly be momentarily demoralizing.

Still winter in places.

From publiken

It might just look like some random snow to you, but actually this is a new glacier that moved across the road just in the past few weeks. It's about 15' deep where it sits over the road.

There's a glaciologist over at UW who is flat out stunned. He has traveled all over the world and even in Texas, and says he has never seen something as unexpected as this.

The Forest Service isn't sure what to do. They would like to be able to use the road, but on the other hand glaciers are pretty threatened world wide these days, and locally extremely rare.

Misc. morning run. Compared to yesterday, a lot of snow that was visible to the east on the west slope of the Laramie Range has disappeared. There's still a good bit left, but mostly just within a few hundred vertical feet of the top of the ridge, and almost is nothing left that you can notice north of Pilot Hill. Good job, sun!

Myriad small white phlox are blooming down in the Flats. It's not exactly like the vitsippa in bloom around the IKHP clubhouse, but it's still pretty nice.

Legs not as sore one day later after a hard run as last time out. Ran a course at an easy pace at Diamond Bay; still a fair amount of snow in parts even at that relatively low altitude (8000', or whatever it is.)

It was mild most of the day until shortly before I headed up, when a could front blew through, and temps dropped almost immediately--maybe 20 degrees, maybe more. Big difference between sun and mid 60s compared to low 40s and no sun plus some decent wind!

71F = summer. Nobody was sad to see it come, not even the people who sell hot tea to cold pedestrians when snows are in the air. Rode south of town and didn't see a single roundup in progress. Plenty of trucks hauling limestone to the cement plan though, so business as usual there.

Maybe in other places the seasons follow the calendar, but around here, given the vicissitudes of the weather, you better go by what it is, and not by what it should be. So if it's April and the wind is howling and snow is cutting at you along a horizontal path, it's winter. And if it's May and the sun is out and it's over 70, it's summer. Definitely summer today, and was there ever people more deserving of an early summer day than the long suffering Laramites?

Very nice to be out orienteering today, and the snow was ebbing rapidly in most unshaded areas. Held the best pace I could, and felt much more comfortable running this time than last time out.

2 more hedge plants bite the dust.

Sub-morons were active in the area I had intended to orienteer in, I got out late, and, once out, my legs didn't feel all that lively, so I bagged the workout I had planned on doing, and did some easy running through terrain instead, with hopes of doing something of higher quality tomorrow (gone with the wind.)

Today was the first day that gave a hint of summer.

Another hedge plant bites the dust; this one was a bear and wasn't yielding until a finally struck a lucky blow on the tap root/trunk about 3' down.

Sunshine--luv it! It's almost like Spring for a change!

The East Yellowstone entrance opens up on Friday, but when will the road over Libby Flats open? No word on that. I am guessing *not* Friday.

Legs still sore from 2 days ago, so did an easy run out Pelican Bay way (kind of like Blue Jay Way, but with pelicans--which are larger birds, and eat fish--instead). I heard many turkey gobbles but saw no toms, or any hens either. Still plenty of snow bunkered in the forest and select protected slopes and reentries (just thought I'd go old school for a moment), but the stuff seems to be ebbing bit by bit.

Naturally it snowed. In fact, it snowed lots of times while I was out--the back and forth play between sunshine and snowshine was in full command of the afternoon. Classic sprinter season.

The highlight was seeing several marmots out, which is a sure sign of spring. Though they're plump and well equipped with a fine coat of fur, marmots are no dummies, and prefer to sleep their time away during winter and not bother coming out until they can be sure that spring--the real thing--has arrived.

There were also lots of pasque flowers finally poking up, and little colonies of Parry's Daisy blooming (or maybe it's not Parry's, but some other low slung, early blooming daisy.) Plus, there was me! ; )

Another hedge plant removed.

River somewhat lower--by a few inches--than when I was by it last week or whenever it was. A report today found that the snowpack in the Snowies in at least one location is 300% of normal (water content) for this date--pretty awesome.

Whoops--snowed tonight!

Snow overnight and seasonally cool at 17F.

Since the nordic association decided yesterday would be the last day for grooming (the decision being made that it's as well to halt now, and save money for next season, and not because of snow), I decided today would likely be my last day of skiing at Happy Jack. It's been a long enough season no matter how you look at it, and great in so many ways, and the long ski yesterday afternoon/evening was really the perfect capper anyway.

Oh, yes--we did have more snow today, too, though the squalls that swept through didn't leave much behind and nothing stuck in town until late in the day.

A circumnavigation of Antenna Hill. Only a few spots with snow across the dirt roads, so not bad at all.