"Dakota...don't grab that stick!"

Sunday, February 27, 2011

I’d spoken to Bruce, an old camping buddy, about hiking in the deep snow and he’d agreed to join me for an early morning hike. “I’m dropping Jack off at church around 10 a.m. so we could meet right after that if you like,” I said.

“I was thinking more like 7 a.m.,” he replied. Bruce and I used to work together for Libra Industries and he was the only guy in management that arrived consistently before me – usually around 5:45 a.m. He loved the mornings. “Okay…I’ll see you there then…but I like sleeping a little on Sunday morning, so you’re going to pay the price. Be ready to walk long and in deep snow,” I said.

He was there early…and without boots. “Um…didn’t I tell you we’d be going off trail and you’d need boots?” He looked at me sheepishly and claimed he didn’t have any. Bruce is always marching to his own drummer. A couple of years ago when I dragged him up to the Adirondacks I’d had him do some training by carrying a back pack loaded with weight in the Metroparks. He’d shunned my advice to use a bag of salt or rice and gone with tools and weight plates. After hiking five miles to a lean-to and base camp for that camping trip, he discovered that he hadn’t taken out a five-pound weight plate from the training back pack. The knucklehead had thrown his clothes in on top of it and carried it in and of course…back out.

We headed off in search of antlers…sure to still be buried in snow…in places I hadn’t hiked the day before. We slid down towards the marsh and found the creek we needed to cross swollen from the continuing melt of Friday’s blizzard. “We can cross over here. There’s a pretty thick branch kind of frozen into the ice that will probably support our weight,” I said.

Bruce and Dakota followed my lead and when we reached the crossing point, Dakota walked across on the ice. “Showoff,” I said as I put my foot on the branch I’d identified. Dakota believes that all things either once connected to…or still a part of…a tree are hers to chew, chase, retrieve, yank or carry. The branch I now had my foot on was no exception. She grabbed it in her mouth and began to yank. “Hey…stop that Dak…” was as far as I got before the ice under the branch gave way and my boot crashed into the icy water below. I fell backwards laughing and Bruce grabbed for me to keep me from going in deeper. A week earlier, I’d watched John do something similar, but I’d been laughing at him instead of trying to help him out.

We continued our hike around the perimeter of the marsh looking for antlers…or maybe not…when Bruce pointed ahead at something scampering through the woods heading for the marsh. “It’s a beaver…or a big muskrat,” he said. I didn’t have my camera and only saw a blur. I’ve never gotten a picture of or even seen a beaver on dry land…and the streak would continue. There was a fresh dropping of wood chips around the tree from which the tracks left so I can only surmise he’d definitely seen a beaver. Well…I know where to come back…maybe with a little more stealth…and I’ll get my picture on another night.

We completed the hike in a little under 2 hours. We stuck to the woods, working our way into and out of another couple of ravines to add to the workout. Bruce, gym trained, noticed the difference and wondered out loud about the wisdom of this hike before trying to spend a few hours at the auto show. “You always tell me its going to be easy…and then I exhausted. Either you’re a liar or I’m in worse shape than I thought,” he said as we approached the parking lot.

“You’re not in hiking shape…and I suppose I lie…a little,´ I replied.

So…two days in a row of long hikes in deep snow. I’m feeling some guilt…not getting the heart rate up, but my achilles is hurting some even on the hikes so I better stay away from running. And the bike? Yeah…I’ll get back to it, but as long as the snow is deep and I can get plenty from hiking, I’ll probably stick with it.

Hike duration: 1 hours and 45 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 90 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 525.