Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Trails are shaping up nicely. And soon I will be, too! More new snow, and you know that can't be bad.

Ran directly after skiing, and even so it took almost 30 minutes to get warm again. Pretty chill out, for early December.

Much new snow overnight meant very soft trails today--they had only been rolled. Definitely looks and feels like winter now. Probably because it *is* winter.

Didn't see a single tick this year up in the Laramie Range, and it's pretty clear that there's no much danger of seeing one in the few remaining days of 2012.

Good snow, just need another storm or two to finish fleshing out the base in several thinner spots. And need some more ooomph in my flimsy arms. But that will come, with some special early season ski pizza, specially formulated to give all the essential ski nutrients and vitamins. They always feel super weak for the first week or two of the ski season. Probably they're just as weak after that initial period, and it's more a case of getting used to weak feeling normal.

Another storm is supposed to be headed this way tonight/tomorrow. And it's not going to be rain.

Just for fun: what does Wyoming lead the nation in?

Well, yes, of course it leads the nation in terms of average elevation of O' maps (call it a conservative 8200'), but beyond that.

Give up? Energy exports.

Out for a dusk trot through the Flats. New snow just starting to arrive. Yeehaw.

New snow. Single digit temps, which felt cold. Must HTFU.

Still colder after skiing, and even running through the newly formed deep snowdrifts didn't warm me up much. Even more imperative to HTFU.

Tried to figure out various ways to get warm when I got home. Finally hit on one that shows genuine signs of promise: turning on the heat.

I usually try to hold out at least until calendar winter hits (21 December) and have gone as late as 4 January. But not this year, I guess. I am blaming it on the unusually long last winter. Didn't have enough time to recover and build the forces back up over the summer.

C • Unusually long last winter... 2

Pretty decent biking weather for so late in the year.

Pretty nice time out at Twin Boulders. Ran across a decent sized herd of elk--about 40 head or more, and all cows except for one young bull. At a guess, that's an indication of some successful hunters this season.

I've finished drafting up what little survey I accomplished this year--an incredibly long winter and a long mosquito season didn't help matters--and it looks like the mapped area in the Laramie Range now comes to a little over 136 km2. All contiguous; I'm pretty sure this is the second largest area of contiguous O' map in the US, and perhaps in the hemisphere (though you can't entirely rule out a surprise in Barbados, I suppose?)

Hope to tack on some more next year, but you never know. I have a feeling one of these years winter is going to over-sprawl summer completely. That plus pesky year round snowsnakes would be a formidable challenge to overcome.

C • close... 19

snow trails