Monday, March 9, 2009

Frozen Mashed Potatoes

D and I head to Bradbury today in hopes that the trails would be firm following the spring-like weather of the past few days. We were in luck, as the Snowmobile Trail had seen both traffic and was pretty solid. (Which makes sense because it started snowing pretty much as soon as we arrived.) It was by no means smooth, but we weren't sinking in with each step. We decided to turn around at four miles after D nearly yakked up her breakfast due to the stench of the manure piles that line the field.



As it turns out, that pile is almost exactly four miles from the parking lot. We'd planned for a longer run together, but the sushi we had last night for dinner was sitting too well in D's stomach. Once we returned to the parking lot, we headed out onto the 4-mile Fat Ass course, but with the rumblings she turned around after another half mile. I continued on the loop, and while the conditions were firm that weren't exactly good. For the most part, the Boundary Trail was well-packed and fairly smooth...except when it wasn't. The few stream crossings were interesting. As I attempted to cross one of the streams, the chunk of snow I was standing on collapsed into the stream...so soggy. The Tote Road is a whole other story. It's a festival of postholing destruction. OK, not the whole thing, but there are a lot of holes in it. The last section of it between the cut over to the Boundary Trail and the Northern Light Trail is the worst. It's seen less traffic, so it's less packed and has bigger holes.

OK, I'm not complaining, it was a great run. It just wasn't easy. I'm soft, you see.

What I am complaining about is the song that was in my head for the entire time I was running by myself. Maybe that's why I picked up the pace...

3 comments:

R. Ian Parlin said...

If it makes you feel any better conditions were much worse on Saturday when I ran the Fat Ass loop with Jim and Blaine. That was a real pain in the ass. I asked Tammi if she could drive the park's snowmobile around the loop for us, she said she hasn't been trained on that piece of equipment yet. I said none of the people who snowmobile around here have been trained, but she's a stickler for the rules. I think I'm going to snowshoe the loop at least once a week until the FA, and encourage others to do so too, otherwise we'll never make it for more than 2 laps.

sn0m8n said...

I assume that things are going to change a lot in three weeks...or at least I hope so. I definitely feel lucky that we hit it on a cold day because the level parts were great. Since I was solo, I was cautious on the postholed portions because they were ankle testing to say the least.

Are you sure you couldn't find a way to persuade Tammi to run the machine around?

Anonymous said...

You should check out the Great Gulf Trail. I did it last night on snowshoes, but it was probably packed enough for trails shoes w/ traction aides. I also went up the Osgood Trail a little ways and it looks like it could be packed all the way to Madison.