Friday, March 13, 2009

A Wild Ride

Mt. Spokane Trail Map (click on it to get a bigger view)


Last Tuesday on my day off Nancy and I went up to Mt. Spokane to do a little cross country skiing. Unfortunately, I grabbed the wrong pair of skis for her so she was unable to ski at all. BUT, I had a blast! Not wanting the opportunity of having a ride go to waste, I had her drop me off in the snowmobile parking lot and I skied down trail 120 which is a snowmobile route. Wow, was it a blast. There were two bits where I had to take my skis off and walk down because it had not been groomed and some snowmobiles had chewed it up pretty bad. I kept getting the back of my ski caught up in the bumpy torn up tracks and was certain that I was going to end up dead with my head through a tree. For most of the way it was downhill. I took my snowshoes with me and when I got down to trail 120B I strapped them on and walked down to the first trailhead by the entrance where Nancy was waiting.

I had started thinking of summer and warm weather when we got more snow. I even sent in for a chance to get an overnight trail permit for the Enchantment Lakes area in the North Cascades. Even so, I was again stunned by the beauty of the fresh snow and blue sky as I cruised down the mountain.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

I can't think of a title for this post so I will call it...lamp post

No notable exploits have taken place in the past few weeks. I have been sticking pretty close to home. Walter and I went for a little snow hike on Mt. Spokane today. The snow is turning to complete slush and was really wet and heavy. It actually rained on us for a bit. We had a thunderstorm last night that was pretty amazing. Here are some pictures of a few little things I have done over the past few weeks. I am starting to get anxious about spring. I am ready.



Walter with frost on his eyelashes



The downhill ski area taken from a cross country trail at night (yeah, I went up skiing alone in the dark one night. It was a blast...yes mom, I had my headlamp...and even a spare)



Trees hanging out in the dark



Nancy the tree hugger



Weird sight along the Centennial Trail



The Spokane River and driftwood


An owl up in a tree



The sun trying to burn through the clouds



Wild turkey and deer hanging out together



A snowy trail


Manressa Grotto, a really cool rock shelter on the Kalispel Reservation
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