HOW ‘BOUT SOME CHEESE WITH THAT WHINE

Friday, February 21st Wandering Ju and I decided to snowshoe instead of hike.  Map Master was in Cat Island sending us photos like this …..

“Back in Paradise,” she says.

Here in the Colorado foothills we have our own Paradise — inches and inches of fresh snow.  We’re going snowshoeing!

When you don’t snowshoe on a regular basis (like Wandering Ju does), you forget the “hassles” involved in snowshoeing.  No problem.  I had everything lined up the night before:

Snowshoes — Check
Poles — Check (but I did forget to put my snow baskets on)
Gloves — Check
Ear muffs — Check
Parka — Check
Boots — Check
Snow pants — Check
Gaiters — Check
Thermals — Check
Lunch — Check
Water — Check
Chocolates — Check, check and check

Now, I’m not really much of a whiner.  My friends will attest to that!  So I’m not sure what happened this Friday morning.  Wandering Ju and I did make a wrong turn adding an additional 20 minutes to our drive.  No problem.  We just turned around, questioned the convenience store gal, and found the trailhead.  Life is good again!

But here’s where the whining begins.  For whatever reason — I was having a heck of a time with just about everything!

1.  I couldn’t remember how to Velcro my gaiters (whine), so decided I would be OK without them because the snow wasn’t that deep (mistake).

2.  I put on my jacket and backpack, and then decided to slip into my snowshoes.  As I bent over, everything in my backpack came flying forward (whine).  So I removed my backpack.

3.  For the life of me I could NOT get my bindings fitted (whine).  Wandering Ju (who was ready to go and waiting for me) helped.

4.  I had to find my gloves (whine), my poles (whine), and my ear muffs (whine).

5.  Then I remembered my backpack (whine), so I removed my gloves (whine), slipped on my backpack, and put my gloves back on (whine).

I was finally ready to go.  We snowshoed about 20 feet and realized that I did, indeed, need my gaiters (whine).  So we headed back to the car to retrieve them (whine).  I had to remove my gloves (whine) and backpack (whine) again, and figure out how the heck to Velcro my gaiters (whine) without removing my snowshoes (whine).

While I figured out the gaiter problem, Wandering Ju ate her lunch, updated her Facebook profile, cleaned out the backseat of her car, checked her emails, and made a few online banking transactions.  And that was just while I got the FIRST gaiter on (whine).

I was ready to snowshoe — AGAIN!  My #1 favorite past time is ….. anybody? ….. Hiking!  My second favorite past time WAS snowshoeing.  But now snowshoeing had moved from my #2 favorite past time to #19 — right behind getting a root canal (whine).

However — about five minutes into the trail, all that whining was history.

The beauty of the rolling terrain in the aspen, pine, fir and spruce trees …..

….. immediately brought snowshoeing back to my #2 fav.

Wandering Ju was happy to see my whining had stopped.

Thank goodness!

We never did find the marked trail.  Had it not been for other snowshoe tracks, there would have been no way of knowing where the trail was.  According to my map, we were supposed to start at trail 925A, meet at the intersection of 952B and 925F, then meet with 342A and possibly 926A, and follow 925F back to the trailhead.

I was getting hungry (no whining, honest), so I found a log on which to dine.

I look so happy — was I really whining that much?

YES!

We turned around and headed back the way we came.  We arrived at the trailhead and wouldn’t you know it — right there in front of us — the 925A trail marker!!!!  I think it was seriously about 10 feet from the car!!  We both snowshoed right past it.  (I was probably whining!)

Could it be marked any better?

But that’s OK!  We still had a great hike and a great day!  We were fine with the trail we hiked because …..

….. nobody likes a whiner!!!