Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Definite signs spring is making some progress:

From publiken

The wind was up while I was out biking and when I checked the gauge when I got back home, sure enough, the needle was well into the "exhilaration" portion of the dial. Going up an overpass over the interstate and headed straight into the wind there, I almost came to a complete standstill. More power.

Though it was mild, there were too many clouds during the middle part of the day for the sun to register a big hit on the ski trails. Skiing is easily going to reach into April yet another season.

Crust was good in areas the sun had already passed over and I took advantage of the conditions to skate out into Browns Landing to check on my Daze controls out. They were very happy to be waving in the wind and were looking fine! Seeing those controls out there, those little orange and white triangles set against the snow with tips of sage just starting to peek through, I could not help but to start humming a few bars from "Don't Lose Faith in Tomorrow", a properly righteous song.

Nice day with lots of wind, and the main focus was some cycling. Didn't neglect skiing though and the conditions remain good spring snow skiing. Coverage remains great even as the sun has started to get a better grip on the snow where it can. A group of high school skiers were having fun in the late afternoon on the trails and besides them it was just me.

Over the past few years there have been persistent rumors of wolf sightings over in the Snowy Range and more recently I have heard rumors of one or more wolves in the Laramie Range. "Rumors" because I have neither seen nor heard of any rock solid proof (and there is good reason why people who feel sympathetic towards wolves would not offer up proof they might have, because of all the people in the state who don't feel kindly disposed when it comes to wolves), but I've now heard enough of these things from various sources that I now put the odds well above 50-50 that there are indeed a few wolves around. I would love to see one myself, but so far the closest I have come this winter is seeing foxes repeatedly up at Happy Jack. Not too close!

Snow in the morning (2+ inches) made for good skiing, and snow in the late afternoon (another 2+ inches) made for a great run with that complete feel of winter. Figuring out which tracks in the snow were oh-so-fresh and which were more jaded was a breeze.

Saw one snow biking drug peddler (a fellow who is a pharmacist at Albertsons in town) which was no surprise, and came across a small encampment of campers who were making a long weekend at the base of the final hill leading up to the infamous Yellow Pine, which was a surprise. But there were having a good time in the snow, too, so I guess it wasn't a surprise.

The forest service has shut down all the roads in the Pole Mountain unit (the block of national forest where all our maps are) because of excessive damage to the land from vehicles driving around snowdrifts and the like, and that has never happened before, so that was a surprise, too.

Based on the current forecast, the skiing should remain rock solid for at least another week. Excellent!

C • Drug peddler 9

There were a scant few flakes of snow in the air at dusk up in the hills as I was finishing up running, but overall the day went down as one where more snow was melted than was added. Skiing remains great.

Another sign of impending spring: the covers were being pulled off the greens on the golf course. That won't spur the pasque flowers to git on up there and bloom any sooner, but it will be a boon to golfers who can't wait to send a few balls out onto the adjoining streets (I think the pro shop must sell *a lot* of balls).

C • Do many end up on Inca Drive? 2

I was in hopes that going out for a ride in the afternoon would coincide with milder conditions after a chilly start to the day in the morning. And it did. Gradually the sun was able to wield more force as thin clouds moved off or otherwise dissipated. When I went up skiing at the end of the day, it was evident that things did indeed get mild to the point that this was the first day of the year that the sun registered a solid hit to the ski trails. Skiing was great in the spring conditions! Running after skiing was fun, too, though by then the day was cooling off again and a few of the more sun exposed trail sections were re-freezing and getting a bit slippery.

The highlight of the run was coming across a long stretch of fresh turkey tracks imprinted sharply into the snow. Many people are perhaps unaware that the turkey was domesticated by the Ancestral Pueblans for a protein source (the turkeys were not consulted on that aspect of their domestication), which had the unanticipated result of directly leading to the downfall of their civilization as turkey burgers and turkey sausages became incorporated into their religious ceremonies. It is no accident that today no religion--major or minor--anywhere in the Americas forces its acolytes to subsist off of the turkey burger.

Time to check in on spring, and see how it's doing:

From publiken

Hmmmm....still looking a bit anemic today. Well, maybe anemic is not quite the right word. Let's go with "tentative" instead. Yes, I believe that is better: spring is still looking rather tentative today. But sooner or later those pasque flowers will be rearing their purple heads to greet the sun!

C • Spring 14

At some point you just have to bite the bullet and git on with things. And when I saw the latest long term forecast and realized that winter was not likely to dwindle for another good 2-3 months, I just reached for my backpack and a stack of controls and headed up into the hills to start putting out controls for this summer's (summer? really??) Laramie Daze.

A typical scene from the Brown's Landing area (it's darkish looking because storm clouds were moving in to unleash new dumps of snow):

From publiken

Note the complete absence of cattle; they have all been ruint by the prolonged winter and got blown away by the really big winds once they hit the skin-n-bones stage.

C • Cattle 1