Training Log Archive: CleverSky

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The letter carrier misread the house number 871 as 371, so I received somebody else's W2. I delivered it, In The Dark. Heard a pack of coyotes howling somewhere near Lanni Orchards on my way back.

C • Misdelivery 2

Robbs Hill, In The Dark. Parked on Burrage St., and the majority of this was snowmobile trails, with some snow bike trails and some trails with just a little foot traffic. Navigated strictly by topology, which worked out fine. Temp a few degrees below freezing. Nice night, nice place, hadn't been there in a long time.

Down the bank of the Nashua River from 225 and back, In The Dark. Turned around at the private property sign. A few inches of snow, some of which was packed by snowshoes and some of which wasn't. A little slow going when I cut through the woods to get back to the trail. Temperature in the high teens F.

Willard Brook NW. I could have sworn that I had more than one pair of XC skis, but maybe when we had the dumpster to clean out Mom's house, I tossed the others because I decided they were junk. Well, the pair I have left are junk, too. Maybe the skis are barely okay, but the boots and bindings are definitely junk. (The poles, however, are quite good.) So this barely qualified as skiing, but since there was snow out there, and not enough to justify snowshoes in my opinion, it seemed like the thing to do.

The snow was crusty in the open but softer in the woods, and the first trail I was on had a lot of running water. The bigger trails had had a snowmobile or two go through, but it wasn't packed down enough to skate. On the way back I decided to take a small trail that I remembered, in hope of bypassing a bit of climb and some of the wet sections, but I forgot that it was going to dump me out in the back yard of one of the houses on Vinton Pond, so it ended up doing neither, and I went through a bunch of woods.

Nice to be outside, though.

Snow dealings, round 5a: Alan's driveway. We spent the night at my brother's place, and he has a guy who plows, but I spent a couple of minutes cleaning up the edges and corners.

Snow dealings, round 5b: Nancy's driveway. We parked at North Street Auto and walked down from there, and there was 3-4" of snow. I shoveled a path up to the top, and then this stuff was to the liking of the electric blower, so it did the bulk of the work, and I just needed to do the plow snow down by the road with the shovel, while Nancy cleaned off her car and did the top part.

Snow dealings, round 5b: my driveway. Parked by the mailbox with the flashers on and blowed a wide enough corridor to get the car in, then blowed the rest, including the mailbox (which was challenging because it got muddy right in front of it, then a tire track/rut/ridge formed and froze, so it's a bad surface under the snow). Pleased that I had enough gas left to get this done. I didn't measure it, probably about the same 3-4" as at Nancy's, which was presumably more before it warmed up today, but it was still pretty fluffy.

Down to the lake and back, In The (morning) Dim, 10F. I wore a headlamp, not because it was hard at all to see where I was going, but just to make myself visible in case I encountered any cars. Stepped out onto the ice, which was nice and smooth enough in the cove, but looked like it had more rough snow coverage further out. But the ice next to shore was too thin, and I went through.

The area on the left going down the hill, where a bunch of clearing took place last year, now has four houses in various states of completion.

12 F, In The Dark.

Well, this was bordering on not so smart.

The ride went fine, but it was pretty cold. It was the loop I had in mind a couple of nights ago. Too cold for riding a bike on the road, at least for me. I was dressed pretty warm, but my fingers, toes, and thighs got cold. My toes are still cold. Uphill wasn't too bad, but the flats and especially the downhills took too little effort and produced too much wind chill. Got it in the books, but that's about all I can say for it. And I suppose I HTFU a little.