My plan to go biking in the snow last weekend fell through. I decided that I really wanted to go, so I managed to convince a few other guys to go this weekend instead.

I had thought that the trail conditions would be alright considering how much ot had warmed the previous week, and how much snow had melted. My house had no snow whatsoever, so I figured that there would only be a few inches out at the trails.

I was wrong on how much snow was remaining. As soon as I got to the parking lot, I could see the ride wasn’t going to be as I expected. The trail reports from people just finishing didn’t sound good either. Hmm. I was still set on riding though.

We pushed up to C-Section, then I figured we should hike the road up, and hit Snakes and Ladders, a very fun downhill trail. Off we went, hiking up the road. We were the first people with bikes to go up the road. Hmm, not necessarily a good sign. At times the snow got so deep there was no point in pushing, so on the back the bike went. Ouch! Slogging up the hill was quite a chore. We decided to take a shorter route to Snakes and Ladders. This involved a steepish trail that went downhill. Again, we had first tracks, but no matter how steep it was, there was too much snow to get any good momentum going. When we reached the turnoff to Snakes and Ladders, we could see that there were no tracks heading up there, so we packed it in. We took the straightest, steepest trail down to the lower half, but even that invloved lifting bikes over and under blow downs. When you could get on the bike and pedal, we usually only got a few feet before sliding out, or just falling over.

Finally we got back to C-Section, and there had been a lot of riders on the lower half ot the trails. We took the fireroad back down to Skull trail, and that was a blast! Getting up some speed finally felt awesome, and you really just need to let the back end of the bike dance around instead of trying to control it. Zipping down Skull was awesome too. The snow had been packed down a lot, and some ice sections were encountered, but overall there was a lot of traction. Back in the parking lot we made plans to hit a local pub for some food to help warm us up. I had brought a change of clothes, but forgot socks. Doh!

Even though it was mostly hiking while pushing, pulling, or carrying our bike, I had fun. Yoshi had a great romp in the snow too. Would I do that ride again? Nope. Next time I will stick to the lower section of trails. Live and learn. I am very sore today though. It was a tremendous workout.