Sunday, April 06, 2008

Another snow trip - Jan 08


Since we are a glutton for punishment we decided to take another snow shoe trip back up to clear lake. This time David and Ginni Hendrix came along- some friends from our small group. The weather was rough and the temperature low. Naturally the dogs came along. The snow was very deep. We trekked 3 miles around the lake. The first mile wasn't bad, we were going down hill and we were able to walk in some tracks a snow mobile had made. When we reached the lake, we encountered a group of snowmobilers (is that a word?). One of them, probably in an attempt to show off, decided to make a series of several tight turns at a very high speed while on the frozen lake. Unfortunatley for him, the turn was too tight, the edge of the snowmobile track dug into the ice cutting a nice oval shaped hole for his snowmobile to fall into. Fortunately for him we was very close to shore so the water level was only up to his knee. It happened in an instant, and a few seconds later he was out of the water and back on his snowmobile like nothing had happened. Lesson learned, I'd say. Too bad I didn't have the where-with-all to snap a picture. But you can use your imagination.


The last couple of miles were rough. As you can see in the next picture the snow level was up to our knees even with the snow shoes on. Zena was barely visible in fresh snow, but was smart enough follow behind us. For the last 2 miles we walked single file switching leaders from time to time. We slowly made our way out into the middle of the lake (a very cool feeling) and up around into the camping area. At one point Zena thought it was a be a good idea to jump over an embankment, she didn't know there was a steep drop off on the other side. Luckily Elisabeth saw it and was able to scramble over to pull her to safety before she got too far down the embankment.




The last mile was hard, but we made it back to the car. I gotta hit the cardio. Nothing makes you feel more out of shape than walking in deep snow.
-Josh

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