Training Log Archive: Swampfox

After skiing, I went running down into the Pole Creek drainage, and 45 minutes into the run I was comfortably now running on a dead flat, snow packed Forest Service road. Hadn't encountered a single even mildly slippery spot, and then the next step put me flat on the ground in a millisecond. I banged a knee and laid on the ground for a bit to assess for any damage, and then got up and looked around for the offending spot. I couldn't find a thing. It must have been some kind of devilishly clever runner trap, with all the knobs twisted to the perfect setting for swampfox.

I kept on going, alert of course the rest of the way for the possibilities of additional cunning devices designed to fell.

I guess I was lucky it wasn't an IED.

Still a fine outing, and the nearly full moon shining ghostly through very thin high fog provided the perfect touch.

C • obviously.... 4

Quite nice day, the wind backed off a few tens of mph, there's almost no snow left that is loose enough to be blown around, and temps soared right on past the freezing mark, urged on by a soaring sun and a brilliant nearly full moon. It almost felt like mid-January all in all. I skied and then put in an hour running on the snow trails, all leading up to going to the basketball game this evening. It turns out that the undefeated #7 SDSU is a whole lot better than the much defeated #300 (or thereabouts) Wyoming, and it showed.

Ski intervals up today. Fast snow, lots of sun, big wind, but not cold enough to make the big wind brutal. Good stuff, and a little very easy running afterwards (and, boy, were the snow bikers out in droves tonight.)

The wind took the day off, and that brought out innumerable skiers, snowshoers, snow bikers, and miscellaneous dogs. Nobody could believe what was going on, and there was even sun!

Conditions were ideal for setting out some skiers traps, so I set out a line, and as soon as I got done with the last trap I checked the first trap. Success! I already had my first skier, which of all things turned out to be Graham Baird (X8A7). I told him if he would just stop struggling against the snares for a few moments I would set him, and that he could then continue wearing out his arms double poling. Upon hearing that, the good Graham said he would rather stay in the trap instead, if that would be alright. I guess he was tired by that point--surprising, when it later developed that by then he had only been out skiing for 8 minutes. I'm not sure how he is going to get through Birkebeiner, unless it's on the back of a snowmobile.

Saw lots of other friendly and familiar faces, and ended up skiing for more than three hours when I had planned for only roughly 2. And you can't be too unhappy about the lack of wind--it will no doubt return soon.

Ski intervals.

Once again, the wind was kickin some ass in the afternoon, and causing all sorts of mayhem along I-80 from one end of the state to the other--and that's a lot of state. There are 4 major wind projects (one of which will be the largest yet in the country) either about to start construction or underway in the counties of Laramie, Albany, and Carbon, and the developers must sit around in their offices high fiving on days like this.