After spending hours shoveling on Sunday, I had no energy left for snowshoeing. Rather than push myself beyond reasonable limits, I invoked the Shelley rule - when you think about doing something stupid think what Shelley would say. So I decided to take Monday off and snowshoe then.
Monday dawned bright and clear, a picture postcard kind of day. After doing a little work in the morning, and with a need to be home and available I grabbed my gear and headed out. I headed to the Weston Ski Track, 15 minutes and 3 town lines away.
The trails at the Weston Ski Track range over the grounds of the Leo J. Martin Memorial golf course. With trail pass firmly attached I headed out. It was only as I was strapping the snowshoes on that I realized I'd brought Amy's not mine. The good news is that they are almost identical, and all that was required was a small amount of strap adjustment.
The trail I chose makes a 2km loop starting along the edge of the parking lot, then turning to follow the banks of the Charles River, then up a hill (affectionately listed on the trail map as Mt. Weston) before turning back toward the club house.
Snow conditions were extremely varied ranging from dry, fluffy "freshies" to crunchy ice crust and finally, where the sun had been beating down on the snow, to what my skier buddies refer to as "mashed potatoes". The trails are nice and wide, with lots of opportunity for making my own tracks.
Temperature when I started off was 40 according to the thermometers on the back of the trail rules sign. In open spots it was quite windy, as evidenced by the spinning fans in the snowmaking machines.
The trails were busier than I'd expected but open and wide enough to not feel crowded. I didn't see any other snowshoers, though.
One drawback to the trail I chose is that as it makes the u-turn to head back to the clubhouse, it borders Route 128, the train tracks, and the Mass Pike. I really wished that I'd brought my iPod, so that I didn't have to listen to the traffic. It was definitely not a wilderness experience. And to top it off I missed the excitement of the tractor-trailer accident at the intersection of 128 and the Pike, which happened between when I passed and when I got into the car 25 minutes later.
To finish off my play day, I headed for the workshop and spent a couple of hours sanding, vacuuming (I even vacuumed the floor outside the workshop), and dry fitting the parts of the project I'm working on together.
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