Christmas Vacation part 2- A hike, a flat, and heavy snow

After a wild Christmas day, after a couple of days of rest, we were itching to get back up the mountain to do some good 'ol fashioned snow shoeing. This time it was just Elisabeth and I with the dogs in the Subaru. Thinking I was all too clever, I bought a set of used studded tires with rims for $75 on Craigslist. Well there is a reason they were only $75. I put the studded tires on the day before we left and kept a good eye on their performance. They seemed fine. So we made our way back to Clear Lake. Half way up, we stopped at Government Camp to use the restroom. When I got out I noticed one of our tires was a little low. So I put some air in it thinking we probably had a slow leak, after all the tire had been on for 2 days by now and it's just now showing some air loss. So I aired it back up and headed 15 miles up the mountain to Clear Lake road.

It was beautiful, and just like Christmas day, it snowed from beginning to end. We put on our shoes and started our 3 mile round trip hike (sound easy, doesn't it? You would think...). Taking our new Magellan GPS navigation... thingy (I don't really know what to call it) for direction we set off with our destination being Clear lake. The dogs LOVED it. They went nuts in the snow. Zena especially loved to bound and romp and dig her face in the snow. She went crazy. The first mile wasn't bad, it was down hill. The Second mile was really rough, because we were in 10 feet of really soft snow (not an exaggeration, we actually looked it up when we got back). Snow shoeing is not easy, especially in deep soft snow. We hiked in a single file line, trading off leaders every now and then. The dogs got smart, anytime we hit deep snow, they stayed behind the leader allowing him/her to blaze the trail. This was fine, except when they got too close and repeatedly stepped on the back of our SHOES!! Grrrrrr.

We made it to the lake, and began the last mile back. This was rough because it was the last mile and it was slightly up hill. We loved being outdoors and loved the beautiful snow accumulating on our beanies and jackets.

We arrived at the car to find an almost completely flat tire. Uh oh. The spare I had was not a studded tire, AND it was a space saver donut tire, not a good thing to use in the icy mountains. Luckily a couple miles down the mountain was a gas station, surely they would have air. If I could fill up the tire again, the leak was slow enough that I would have enough time to get to a tire repair shop at the bottom of the mountain. Well... the chevron didn't have air, it had a station labeled air, but no hose for air. Nuts! They did have a fix-a-flat spray can. So I used that, the can only had enough to fill the tire to 15 PSI, which is half of the 30 PSI needed to have a fully filled tire. That's okay, that would get me down the mountain the 15 miles to the place I used to fill the tire up in while coming up the mountain. Traffic was horrible, it took us 2 hours to go 15 miles. We spent A LOT of time at a dead standstill. With air still leaking and a almost flat tire to begin with, I was sweating it. I was in traffic with no shoulder, there was no way I could change a tire here. We limped into Government Camp and I filled the tire with air there. Whew! It took us another hour or so do get home, but the fix-a-flat and air combo did it's job. We made it safe and sound.

I had to shell out another $50 to replace that tire. Apparently the studs were loose and when I drove on them some wouldn't stay upright and they would actually be smashed sideways into the tire, one of them puncturing it. Good to know. When you buy studded tires, check to see if the studs are loose. Loose studs = bad. Lesson learned. And that's why there were so cheap to buy in the first place.