Training Log Archive: Swampfox

This was one storm that lived up to its (advance) reputation--surely the finest winter storm we have had since 2003. It was done by this morning, leaving *only* the aftermath to deal with.

Outside of town, the aftermath meant the highways were closed for a second day--presumably they will re-open tomorrow.

Inside of town, the aftermath varied widely depending on how a particular location slotted against the wind direction during the storm. If you were lucky, then maybe you ended up with 6"-12" of snow to deal with. If you were really, really lucky, maybe you even had small patches of bare ground. But most people were not lucky. In fact, it can not be overstated as to how unlucky most people were.

I spent several hours of Yowsa! cutting a teensy path from my garage to the street, and then ever so gradually widening that path so that eventually it could accommodate my truck. Some saint had come down one of the sidewalks early in the morning with a snowblower and had exposed enough sidewalk to allow a single file of soldiers (or snow sledders) to trod along en route to some distant destination. Or maybe it was an angel, sent over from Memphis? I spent a half hour or so enlarging that gap in the snow to allow the possibility of a double file of snow sledders (or soldiers) to march along down it.

Finally it was time to attack the remaining sidewalk, which was massively drifted behind an unbelievably awkwardly located (with respect to the wind) fence. This looked basically impossible to attack by ordinary means, so I fell back on high school chemistry and mixed up some homemade explosive using perfectly ordinary ingredients such as crushed white rice, vinegar, mustard powder, and sun dried jalapeno, all wetted down with a fairly liberal amount of nitroglycerine to form a malleable paste, and then used that to successfully blow up the snowdrifts in place while managing to not also blow up myself in place, which I deemed to be the critical part.

No doubt neighbors were startled, but probably not too startled as I have acclimatized them to such things over the years with my wretched and quite loud guitar playing. Well, what's the use of having amplifiers in the first place unless you're going to dime them? And then, what's the use of having windows if not to open them up so all the free sounds can get out?

I reckon the police didn't get more than a few dozen panicky phone calls, which hardly mattered because there was way too much snow in the streets for them to respond anyway.

There will be sunshine tomorrow, and temps not quite as cold, so hopefully winter will be forced to relent by degrees, and maybe it will even be possible to make up to Happy Jack, and see what amount of destruction the winds might have caused up there.

C • angel 4

Today is blizzard (and tomorrow is not looking super great either) and outdoor activities have been limited to...looking out the door, trying to estimate whether or not it was worth checking the mailbox. Which in turn involved an estimation of whether or not the Post Office had any mail to deliver today and a secondary estimation of whether any attempt to deliver mail might have been made. There was a lot of snow. There was a lot of wind. There was a lot of snow in the wind, with horizontal components to movement of snow in the wind dominating. In the end, I determined the various factors to be considered compiled in such a way to mean that any attempt to reach the mailbox would result in near certain futility, or possibly worse. Maybe tomorrow.

C • Air mail, perhaps? 1

Quite a nice day out, mild, sunny most of the day, and dry streets. Dry streets meant I hopped on my bike and got across the river for the first time this year. As a bonus, I even made it back to the other side in good repair.

The ski trail conditions were PDG. Ran afterwards, finishing up at dusk. Having the extra hour to work with is extra nice.

Despite the sun, there was no melt water to be seen up top. Not yet.

Imorgon ska det bli helt annorlunda.

C • Helt annorlunda 1

Mildish out with some sun and very little in the way of wind. Skis were slow on some parts of the trails. I ran afterwards on snow trails, which were somewhat soft, and ran one stretch where there was only one snow shoe pass since the last snows; that was very soft, with several spots where I post-holed. It always feels harder when you're sinking 1-2" with every step, but even so by the time I was finishing up I recognized that there was more to it than that. I was feeling more tired than normal after this kind of exercise. Probably because I had been up late the night before.

Overcast most of the day with temps in the 20s and lowering to the teens by late in the day. Snowed lightly much of the afternoon. Skied for 2+ hrs and followed that with some running on snow trails.

Right after I got into woods proper while running, I encountered a moose--the first one in a few weeks. It ran off into the deep snow (it had been taking advantage of the packed trail like any sensible moose.)

Winds got going early today, and with plenty of fresh snow to work with and sun beaming down to heat up the roadways, in no time flat the interstate was closed, and it remained closed until late in the day. Ergo, the first missed day of skiing this season due to closed roads.

More snow today; wasn't sticking in town during the day, and it was adding to the already ample base up top. Even though it was overcast all day long, it was mild out with very little air movement in the woods. So skiing was very comfortable to being on the edge of overdressed for the temps. There were several inches of new snow to start out with.

I ran snow bike trails after skiing, though really the trails were really all soft snow with only one fresh bike tire impression to try to land my feet into.

It was snowing heavily when I left and traffic on I-80 on the way home was crawling due to the road conditions and poor visibility. Passed one car that had slid off the road.