Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Second day without wind. Amazing! New snow too. So fine!

I went up in the early afternoon expecting an enormous Wee Ski crowd, but instead there were sub-normal weekend amounts of skiers. Since the conditions were so nice, the most likely explanation was: Super Bowl. Must be that even Wee Ski doesn't dare go up against the Super Bowl.

Would have been happy to have run longer, but the conflicting demand was wanting to get back home in time to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Even though I didn't run long, it was long enough to come across a yearling cow all by itself, obviously having been missed by the fall roundups. It looked pretty lonely and in fact it tried to trot along beside me, but I didn't trust it to behave itself, so I yelled at it and it turned around to go back and stand rather forlornly in the meadow it had been in. I didn't feel bad about it though--after a few months all by itself, there's no telling what kind of bad behaviors it could have picked up from the moose, including charges, stomplings, and frenzied gorings.

C • Did you catch the opening? 8

New snow, nice ski.

Hoped for moose missing.

Because of snowfall, the swampfox did not see his shadow and I doubt the badger did either, so theoretically the coast is clear!

Another proper day in Laramie: sun over the valley, snow over the Snowies, big wind running everywhere, and the Big Road shut down again.

C • How many days does I-80 hav... 2

Chill.

Quick mid-day ski. It was a little windy out. Translation: by any normal human being standard, it was *really* windy out. The ranchers were all busy deploying cow anchors, so their beeves wouldn't blow away. Call me the breeze!

Skiing later in the afternoon should be extra fun!

The winds backed off a teensy bit in late afternoon (or did it only feel that way in the trees?) but a vast conspiracy of truckers with their trucks in the Wal-Mart parking lot hinted at road closures further west again. The hotels looked like they were doing pretty bang-up business too.

C • hotels 2

Day 5 of the windstorm. Some people imagine that by the time the 5th and 6th days roll around, the winds are surely dwindling and about to go into doldrums. That may be true in some of the wussier spots on the earth, but around here, if you get to Day 5, that's a sure sign that the momentum is only building, and that was certainly true today. I-80 was closed nearly the whole way across the state because of the wind. Driving up to Happy Jack was so weird, because the interstate had turned into a total Ghost Road! Not a single other vehicle in sight. Sure, it's not the DC Beltway, but still, to have no other cars on the road has an other-worldly feel to it, almost as if the only possible explanation was giant metal eating spaghetti monsters slurping up the rigs as they struggled up the Gangplank.

The snow was extra slow today. A lot of last night's snow became windblown. I have no idea what it is about windblown snow that makes it so slow, but it is.

Freezing hands, face, and especially feet meant that I has happy to to do just a short loop on some of the Crow Creek trails. It must have gotten chillier than the forecasts called for; the 60 mph gusting winds definitely only added to the fun!

Day 4 of the epic windstorm. Massive winds were blasting the valley, and the wind generation facility's governor had kicked in so that the facility wouldn't shake itself apart.