Snowshoeing on the Mountain

No, you didn't miss an entry, I purposefully didn't workout yesterday because it was the "Legs" workout and I was scheduled to go snowshoeing today with my friend, Michelle.  She's a very fit, marathon runner and I knew if my legs were sore I'd never be able to keep up with her.  LOL!

So today was the big day!  My first time out on my new snowshoes.  Unfortunately, I woke up to a fierce wind storm ... and typically when it's windy at home it's REALLY windy on the mountain.  So after an early morning call, Michelle and I decided to reschedule for next week.  As I laid there in bed, all bummed out about missing the adventure and drinking my coffee I noticed the wind had died down substanially.  So I looked up the conditions at the closest ski resort to where we were going and saw that they had 0 mph winds!

I quickly left a message for Michelle and told her I was going anyways; and if she wanted to go she had 30 mins to call me.  An hour later I was ready to go and although I hadn't heard from her, I decided to go anyways.

It's about an hour-and-a-half drive to the Trillium Lake Sno-park and the wind was howling all the way.  I was about 2 miles from the turn-out and contemplating what to do when suddenly it stopped!  Yep, as soon as I crested the pass at Government Camp (on Mt. Hood) the wind just stopped.  It was truly amazing and wonderful.

I pulled into the sno-park and within 5 minutes was on my way in my new Denali MSR snowshoes (more about those in a minute).  The conditions were packed snow with an icy crust.  The cross country skiers were having a heck of a time with the ice, but not me.  I just took off and never looked back.

About snowshoeing and my snowshoes:

For those of you that have never snowshoed I highly recommend you give it a try.  It is the one mountain sport that is truly as easy as walking.  However, there are a few things you have to keep in mind.  The first is that you need to walk with your feet perfectly straight.  If you point them out or in, your shoes will keep hitting each other.  My left foot turns out slightly so I did have to concentrate a bit at the beginning to make sure I didn't trip over myself.  The second thing is that you have to walk with a slightly wide stance.  With the snowshoes of old you had to walk like you had just gotten of a 50 mile horse ride ... but not anymore.  If you've ever been on an eliptical machine, the stance on it is wider than snowshoeing.  With my Denalis, the distance is less than 4 inches.

I was advised to wear layers and they were right.  But I have something to add to that.  Layers with zips are the best.  When I got warm I didn't have to stop and take off a layer, I just unzipped them one by one until I reached a comfortable temperature.  Then as I cooled off, I could just zip them back up.  I'm sure I looked like a rolly-polly, but I wore a thermal 1/2 zip top under two light-weight fleece 1/2 zip tops and a windbreaker as the outter layer.  Although I took along a neck wrap and gloves, I never used them.  A ski hat and runner gloves were all I needed.

As for my shoes ... I can't say enough good things about the Denali MSRs (http://cascadedesigns.com/msr/snowshoes/flat-and-rolling/denali/product).  They don't look anything like typical snowshoes (and I got a few funny looks at them I admit), but they are so light they're like walking in your boots!  I also think their width is a little narrower than other snowshoes so you can walk more normal.

Now, back to my day.  The map said the trail was 5 miles and loops around Trillium Lake.  If you've ever seen a photo of Mt. Hood with a lake in the foreground, it's Trillium Lake.  On a clear day it offers one of the best views on the mountain. 

I started off going counter-clockwise around the lake.  The trail is actually the summer road and is clearly marked with appropriate cross country ski/snowshoeing etiquette (skiers on one side of the road, snowshoers on the other).  The trail is classified as easy, and I can attest to the fact that it is.  I didn't take a watch, but I'm guessing it took me about an hour to get to the far end of the lake.  Unfortunately, today was overcast and Mt. Hood was nowhere to be seen.  But the lake is frozen solid and beautiful.  I even saw some brave soles snowshoeing across the middle of the lake!  No, thanks.

Going up the East side I went off the main trail and followed a narrower path through the campgrounds near the shore.  It was so peaceful (except for the sound of my snowshoes on the ice).  But when I decided to get back to the main trail, things got a little interesting.  I won't say I was lost, but there was definitely a 10 second moment when I thought "I may be spending the night here."  I knew the landmarks ... lake to the West, road to the East and Hwy to the North.  Unfortunately, being overcast it was a bit difficult to determine direction.  So I went with left, right and forward instead.  I finally found some old off-trail cross country ski tracks and followed them, figuring they had to be going somewhere!  And sure enough, they eventually took me back to the road.  The weird thing was that the road came up on the left (instead of the right as I expected).  There were some skiers going by, so I dropped in behind them and took off.  About 30 minutes later you can imagine my surprise when I found myself back at the South end of the lake!  Obviously, I should have turned the other way when I got to the road.  :)

I had now been out well over my estimated time of 2 hours and was starting to get a little tired.  But I put on a smile, turned around and started off.  The trail up the East side is definitely steeper than on the West; the West is more rolling hills, where the East is up, up, up.

When I'm climbing out of the Grand Canyon and am tired, I have a technique of setting a pace and counting steps.  So with that same determination I put my head down, set my pace and never looked back.  It took me 3,360 steps to make it back to the sno-park ... which it turns out was about 200 yards from where I turned the wrong way!

By the time I got back to my car my thighs were burning (good thing I hadn't done the P90X Legs workout yesterday) and I had been on the trail for 3 hours.  I did wear one other thing, which was my BodyBugg.  According to it, I burned 1,012 calories and took 17,250 steps while I was out there.  I will say that livestrong.com said 180 minutes of showshoeing burns 1,858 calories, but obviously that's wrong.  That's why I like having the BodyBugg ... it tells me what I burned, not what's typical based on some unknown formula. (BTW-Don't trust the calorie burns on machines at the gym either ... they use the same formula.)

I have to admit it was fun sending a message to Michelle when I was done telling her what a great day I had.  Tony and Ashton were surprised I went on my own, but I didn't think twice about it.  Being outdoors with my thoughts was really nice.

I can't wait to go again next week!  I'll let you know how sore I am tomorrow :)

Cheri