Goal... Out the Window... Kinda like this Winter...

For the last few weeks, the weather people have been bragging that it's the warmest winter we have had and "yeah, there is no snow"... Well, poo on you!!! There was talk of a snow storm for this weekend and I woke up Saturday morning hoping to see at least flurries... I got out of bed and took the dogs for a stroll to Echo lake and now only were there no flurries but it was warm out (32 is warm for this time of year). I was so bummed!! I went back to the house and thought of things that we can do. As much fun as hiking a mountain sounds right now, coming down does not sound like fun at all. Last weekend, there were parts of the Sherburne trail that were essentially bullet proof and with no snow and no groomers coming around to take care of it, it was only going to be worse this weekend. Heading to the east snowfields would be good except that I probably wouldn't be able to walk for 4 days after (hip achage) and we both put some good scratched in our gear from the last time we came down the Cog Railway side. So.... what to do... I looked at Nate and said, "Yup, this 100k idea... total waste!!!" We haven't given up yet, but we aren't going to force ourselves to do stuff just because... If we get snow, we'll go up north and have fun. But if we don't get snow, we aren't going to force ourselves to climb up some hill and pretend to enjoy coming down the hill and please oh please don't fall because hitting ice pack SUCKS!!!! So, there you have it!! I'm going to keep counting and hopefully, we can get to 50k but if not... Oh freaking well!!! :) There's always next year!!

So, in our dilemma to decide what to do, the dogs were jumping all over me and I decided I had to at least get out of the house. I started walking down the access road to go to the top of Cathedral Ledge. There are two slabs of ice that are pretty good to go for ice climbing and for the last few weeks, we have seen tons and tons of ice climbers hanging around these two slabs. As I was walking up to them, I saw this:

If you can't tell what it is, it's prosthetic boots for someone without feet. All morning, Nate and I have been b!tching and complaining that there is no snow and how we can't find anything to do... I saw that and my perspective starting changing a bit. I sent the pic to Nate and was like, "that's pretty sweet!" and kept walking up the access road. At the very least, I was going to climb to the top of Cathedral Ledge and yell down, "Make a decision already"... :) I walked up the access road and noticed how soft the snow was. I kept walking and was like, "wow, this feels like a groomer"... so I kept walking and was like, "well, why don't we just ride this?" The snowmobilers had essentially groomed the road and it was really nice. I texted Nate and was like, "Let's do laps on the access road. The snow is really soft and it's like a groomer". Since it did not require a $50 lift ticket, Nate was in! 

I walked back to the house, got some breakfast and my gear together. I got a new backpack and was totally psyched to try it out. Off we went: 

Nate and scout with cathedral ledge in the background. 

We skinned to the top, it took 30 minutes! :) We switched over our gear.... that took me 10 minutes... Nate 2... :) We went down! It was super nice and really awesome to just connect a whole lot of turns together. We decided to do another lap. This time on the way down, it was a lot more scratchy but still nice to connect a whole lot of turns! All in all, it was nice to get out. It was nice to practice just turning and it's nice not to have the pressure that we have to climb no matter what!

This winter sucks big hairy balls... so instead of being bummed about it, we are just going to make it up... I have done some things that I have never done and probably would not have done without giving ourselves a goal. I got to climb Mount Adams and I summited Mount Washington with hiking boots and then with my splitboard. I climbed a lot of other mountains that I have never heard of. There are a few more mountains that I would like to climb... not necessarily with downhill gear so if anyone is interested in going for a hike this spring... :) 

Our laps up Cathedral ledge brought in a whopping 1,161 feet. That puts us at 35,087 feet. 

Thank you young man for leaving your prosthetic boots out where we could see them. You probably have no idea how inspirational that was, but it was!