Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Mashed Potatoes

Looks fantastic, doesn't it? Too bad it was not solid enough for riding.
Lots of snow means lots of work to be done, not only for shoveling, (see yesterday's post), but also for any recreating opportunities. XC skiing, fat biking, or hiking mean that deep snow needs some "conditioning" to get any appreciable "good times" out of it. I suppose you could snow shoe. I'm just so lucky that my snow shoe bindings bit the dust last year. meh!  they were only 19 years old..... HA! Nothing lasts forever, I get it!

I had heard that an attempt at grooming the Green Belt for fat biking had taken place so I figured on checking it out after doing some morning clean up with the shovel. It snowed a bit......again.....over night, plus the snow plows went through early in the morning.

The Sun is getting higher in the sky now, so much so that you can feel some power in those rays. More direct light was making snow melt in places where the light was hitting it and slush and water were all over the city streets. Maybe this would crust over the packed in trail? I didn't know how well it had been set in or with what method. When I got out to the Green Belt, I saw that they had used snow shoes.

From my past experiences, you have to snow shoe in a trail about ten times, back and forth, to get the snow compacted enough with snow shoes to have any support with fat bike tires later on. At least it is that way with the "sugar snow" we normally get anymore around here. I knew this attempt had been an "out and back", so what I found wasn't a big surprise. It was all mashed potatoes.

That wasn't rideable, so after about 20 yards past the dike I did an about face and walked my rig out of the Green Belt. It looked tempting, and I would have really enjoyed it back there, but it wasn't to be. I probably should have XC skied it, actually. But whatever...... I went back home via alleys and even with a ton of car packing the snowy alleyways, the snow wasn't very easy to ride on. It just isn't very supportive.

And now I hear we're supposed to get more than a half a foot of new snow tonight and tomorrow. Bah! Bring on Spring. This crap snow and late Winter action is for the birds.

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