Friday Apr 18 |
 | Bike - 'bent 1:25:00 [2] 32.2 km (2:38 / km) +325m 2:31 / km | |
| shoes: Slipstream |
| Finally got out on the road with the 'bent. Nice day to be out. A bit apprehensive about how the legs would respond to not having ridden in a while but felt good after warming up a bit. Up to the state line in Hampden, then back over the shoulder of Soapstone and home. Could have ridden more, but didn't want to push it. May go out for a run this afternoon as well, we'll see.
First ride having comprehensive maps in the GPS - quite nice to know what intersections were coming up etc. Crafted the base from a bunch of GIS data and massaged it into a Garmin compatible format with a number of different programs. (Not willing to fork out the couple hundred Garmin wants for its own maps) Had also done some contour stuff over the winter but nuked that as the contours just made reading the unit harder as I'm usually using it at 1:80,000 while riding. I may try adding some hydrography data so I can get a sense of the topography from that - parallel to rivers/lakes fairly flat, perpendicular probably means more climbing. Plus I just like riding along roads that follow water features, so it will make choosing roads to ride on more interesting. |
Wednesday Apr 16 |
| Hiking 2:25:00 [1]*** 6.5 km (22:18 / km) +130m 20:17 / km | |
| shoes: Adidas Response Trail 14 |
| Geocaching with Hayden. Went to Gay City and took a map with us. Once we found each cache, we'd figure out how far and direction of next cache, pick a nice big feature and then use the map to navigate to it. Once there we'd resume using the GPS to narrow down the location. Worked quite a bit on distance estimation in the terrain too (quite useful for me as well). We'd locate a feature in the distance when on a direct line for the cache, note the distance then take turns estimating the distance to the visible object like a conifer or knoll then proceed to go there and check the GPS and see how close our estimation of its distance was.
Visited 11 caches sites, found 8 of the caches. First miss was on an 'island' in the stream headed S from the main pond. Clearly this island is submerged and flooded in high water so we didn't spend an extraordinary amount of time hunting for it. 2nd one we just couldn't locate in a lot of rock. 3rd one I hadn't written down the description or type - turns out it was the first part of a multi and you couldn't actually see it, you had to feel about under the bridge for it. (didn't know that). It also appears that this one may have washed away with high waters as the previous couple of attempts couldn't locate it and the owner has since taken it offline pending an inspection (I had the coordinates in my GPS from before it was taken offline so I didn't know that either). So since its questionable whether its even there I don't really consider this a 'miss'.
Lots of fun, Hayden had a great time - but beware of letting short folk lead - they always pick routes under really low branches that aren't the most navigable routes by persons of greater height.
Shady Glen for ice cream afterwards... |
Tuesday Apr 15 |
| Hiking 1:15:00 [1] 4.85 km (15:28 / km) +110m 13:53 / km | |
| shoes: Puma Sierra Trail Racers |
| another trifecta of early morning geocaches with the boys. Couldn't find the first one at the Furnace Brook Dam, but found Shenipsit and McCann Farm caches without trouble. Nice to be up and out the door early (7am) and back home by mid morning to do other stuff... |
Monday Apr 14 |
| Hiking 1:10:00 [1] 5 km (14:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Puma Sierra Trail Racers |
| 3 early morning geocaches with the boys. 27F sunny leaving house at 7am. Warming up nicely by the time we hit the ridge on Batz Conservation Land over in Ellington. |
| Hiking 40:00 [1] 3.25 km (12:18 / km) | |
| shoes: Puma Sierra Trail Racers |
| Hiking on the rail trail - whole family. |
Sunday Apr 13 |
| Hiking (Geocaching) 1:00:00 [1] 3.2 km (18:45 / km) +120m 15:47 / km | |
| shoes: Puma Sierra Trail Racers |
| Geocaching with the boys over at Campbell's Peaceful Valley Area. Found the first two stages of Avalon Gone, but spent a good 20 minutes searching for the 3rd of 4 and came up empty. Nice morning to be out - was sunny early, clouding over by the time we got over there. Time logged is 'moving time' as shown on GPS, I think we were out for 90 minutes or so. |
Saturday Apr 12 |
| Mixed Run 2:10:00 [3] 21.5 km (6:03 / km) +365m 5:34 / km | |
| shoes: Adidas Response Trail 14 |
| SLR > Webster on roads, then picked up old Soapstone course from 3rd waterstop to Gulf Road. Hung out and commiserated with a dwindling group of Saturday Striders. Did Sampler+ with Bradley and Ginny. Nice morning, good pace. Brad peeled off early on moonlight portion, Ginny & I continued on up to the ridge wherein I headed S toward home and she worked her way around the mountain. |