Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Very nice conditions, no wind, 100% sun, mild, lots of skiers out. Parking lot jammed and a good many cars over on the frontage road by the Visitors Center, too.

One raven, and one sunny section of trail which many people were avoiding because of a dangerous outbreak of snow fleas. However it was truly no worries as a snowshoer had fallen down there and thus the snow fleas had of course gone for the easy prey.

Ran snowy trails at Happy Jack to run out the day.

I had sincerely intended to ski longer. However, as usual, I made the fatal mistake of looking at Eagle Cam and got sucked in. It's way worse than crack cocaine or even NCAA basketball.

It looks like we're finally going to get some melting action on the streets going on, after a brief taste of what it might be like to live Fairbanks.

I ran into a cowgirl from Fairbanks a few days ago, and she said it's not the cold that's so hard to take, it's all the dark. Fairbanks and Laramie are very close in size, and other than Fairbanks having more Army people and Laramie having more college people, and other than Fairbanks being close to sea level and Laramie being not close to sea level, they are probably a lot more like than most people would inuit.

C • inuit 4

The snow at Happy Jack had warmed up enough to go from very sharp and crystalline to a more creamy texture. A giant bird was hiding in the woods. I'm not sure what it was. I was very glad it flew off and didn't try to eat me, because nobody was around to help at that particular point.

Very cold day, maybe on average the coldest I've seen since I've been in Laramie. It was only -15F as late as 10:30 this morning despite it being 100% sunshine. At 5:00 pm, it's -7F. It got a little warmer in between, but I don't think it was much warmer. Cold as a coven of witches, in other words.

It was a real advantage to try to find bits of sunshine on the trails, and be sure to ski through them all. Completely the opposite thing you might do while running on a hot day, where you'd instead be seeking out the bits of shade.

At least the wind wasn't up to jet stream speeds! On a day like today, that would have been bad.

On the way home, 4 antelope sprinted across a very icy Grand Ave. right in front of me. One slipped and fell right in front of a truck (but wasn't hit by the truck, as the truck was stopped to turn), and didn't get back up. It might have had the wind knocked out of it, or it might have broken a leg, poor thing.

Kansas vs. Cornell--talk about divided loyalties!

Trails were deep in new snow, tough going. And the trail net was almost empty; I got up there at lunch time, and the lunch group was light because of the weather, and nobody from the afternoon crowd had showed up yet by the time I was finishing up.

Or maybe nobody else was going to be showing up anyway. It was getting cold--when I started, it was 10F, and it was -4F by the time I hit the Zone of Death--and the winds were picking up.

No way I would have made it out of the parking lot without 4 wheel drive, so thanks for that! I was really almost surprised the gate across the Happy Jack road wasn't down when I left, because the conditions were not good.

Three more beetle kill pines bit the dust today.

C • Will the winter change the ... 2

Doubled up on Yowsa!!! today. Really no excuse--I just couldn't help myself, and gave into the temptation.

Took out my combi skis in an effort to ski off the remnants of some kick wax, put on quite a while (season?) ago. One more ski should get the rest of it off. Conditions were great. Winds were sweeping snow out of the valley, across the Happy Jack Road, and into the beetle kill forest. It might have even been above freezing in the sun, but that's not going to last much longer; colder air is on the way down, courtesy of our friends from the north.

Fast snow. Big wind. Many skiers. Ice in parking lot. Ice on Happy Jack Road. Ice on interstate. No wrecks.

I don't know what it was, but while I was skiing this afternoon, I felt unusually strong and fast. Was it some root or altered mushroom I ate last night? I don't know. The best way to describe it is it felt like I was dancing barefoot.

I'm dancing barefoot
heading for a spin
some strange music draws me in...

--from "Dancing Barefoot" by Patti Smith

Out in the Flats. Many tato kala tracks, few paleface tracks. One skate skier track? That seems weird and ill advised, considering what is available just up the hill. No killer bee tracks.

Could hanaShan really become Redskin man? That is the rumor. That would be beyond wild. It would be like Redskin nation all over again!

Sauna can probably not cure the Broncos. They were beyond bad. Get rid of the pouters, put the rest on a diet of oats and pizza, work 'em like horses, and see what develops.