The 2017 Mountain Bike Year Begins
Ol' man winter has allowed a handful of early rides lately. Despite some brutal cold (see earlier posts), we've had a handful of nice, almost spring-like days. While north aspects remain frozen, south aspects are opening up. Snow is minimal, but the trails all have a shallow icy surface, despite their tame look. The following pic is a view north showing the snow-free southerly aspects of Waterton Canyon, Colorado.
A joint trail here, trail 800 and the Colorado Trail look tame enough. Yet, the trail was deceivably icy.
Ridge tops and their southerly neighbors looked like this.
This corner, and a bit below, was the most slippery segment of the ride.
Certain terrain pockets are small, natural snow catchment-basins, year after year after year.
This is a common preseason turnaround point. This also is the upper Lenny's Bench you've heard me write about. Lenny was a scout who was killed while working on a service project. I think he died in this area, but I'm not entirely sure about that.
That's it for now. We're inch-worming closer and closer to spring and more fun outdoors.
Adios
Just found your sites via Finish Up Friday. I'm sitting here in Maine with the 4 foot snowbanks finally beginning to melt and really love finding you outside in these gorgeous mountains. Hoping to survive Mud Season. Living vicariously via your great photos--thanks :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Karen. Yes, we've had a very mild winter with just a few days of bitter cold. There's a good chance we'll see additional snow, but spring is definitely on the horizon.
DeletePerhaps you could wrap some of those four-foot drifts up in a nice warm quilt to increase their speed of demise.
Thanks for visiting our blogs.
Brett