One of these days I'll learn that if I say, "It'll be fun to try to get to...", it really means that I'll be dead tired after a failed attempt to get wherever it was. Today was one of those days.
After a failed attempt at a winter hike up Hogsback a couple of weeks ago (I needed to go a few miles farther and about 2000 feet higher than I did), I decided it would be fun to try to ski or hike back to the backside of Robe Lake and then go skating. That was today's attempt.
A friend was supposed to come with me, but the wind had started blowing hard again after yesterday's snowy calm, so he backed out. I thought I'd give the skiing part a shot anyway and just quit when the wind got too cold. It ended up being a glorious day. With the exception of a couple of short stretches, I was completely out of the wind, and was actually too warm with the temperature near 30 degrees. I decidedly did not need the warm hat and mittens I'd tucked in my pockets.
The majority of the trail I had trod yesterday, a couple of fat bikes had been on recently, and someone else had skied today, but once we turned toward the lake (the turn was about two miles from my house), Scout and I got first tracks after yesterday's half-inch of snow. It was a little slippery, and I was consistently annoyed at my inability to ski faster than I can walk (apparently my technique sucks), but it was great fun nonetheless.
Although the wind on this section of trail made itself known, it wasn't nearly as bad as the spindrift off the mountain top in the above photo would indicate. We didn't get far down the trail before we came upon the below stream crossing. I couldn't decide if the ice was going to be strong enough to hold me, so on the way out I skirted it to the left and crossed a spot with obvious big rocks. On the way back I noticed twigs frozen in the ice a few inches down, so I guessed it would be strong enough to hold me. Slowly scooting my way across (ski boots have no traction) I heard a crack and felt the ice give under me. My boots found traction in a hurry! It might have held, but I wasn't waiting around to find out.
Not much farther the trail started to climb a very lumpy hill. I was going to have to carry my skis up it, and since I had no idea how much further I had to go and I was starting to get tired, I decided to bag it. I was disappointed to once again not reach my goal, but it was the right decision. I was pooped when I got home 4.6 miles and 1:44 after I'd started out.
I recorded my route on GaiaGPS, an awesome app for this sort of thing, and as I look at it now, I'm not entirely sure I knew where I was going anyway. The upper blue line is the track of my Hogsback hike. The orange line it overlaps was today's ski. The lower blue line is the track from when Thane and I skated on Robe Lake in November. You can see from the nearest point of my orange line to the lake that I was really no where near it at all. Hmph. I'll have to wait for Thane to get home and tell me where I went wrong, a task he never has trouble with. Oh well, it was still a great day.
