Wool + Snow + Mud = Spring

At home I was contemplating my clothing needs for the day - it's always a dilemma to figure out what to wear and pack for the weather. After nervously walking outside several times to test the temps (which does nothing to plan for conditions 5000-feet higher) I finally settled on a wool long-sleeve with 2-more long-sleeved layers in the pack along with a windproof beanie for today's ride. Better to have too much I thought vs too little and getting cold up there (hah - little did I know what the day had in store for me). I had some insane adventure plan to ride up Lick Creek to the top, then ride Pinkham Ridge Trail back to some unknown point that would drop me back down towards the bottom of Lick Creek.

The plan was insane since the day previous I was up there and ran into some spring muck-snow (that's mud + snow to you), but I was not dressed well enough for the coolness and I had the wrong gear on the SuperFly SS (needed something easier for the snow to keep from spinning out so much). So I came home yesterday feeling a tad defeated. Hmmm...

At the last second I also decided to put some quickie-fenders on the bike since I had a mud bath by the end of yesterday's ride. The Gunnar Think Pink had the gear ratio I wanted so it was the bike of choice today (less fiddling with changing gears means more riding time - so the SuperFly rested today).

After getting part way up Lick Creek Rd, I was happy I had the wool on since the temps seemed to steadily decrease, then it started snowing - I was smiling big because this was soooo cool!!!




On the way up I ran across some tracks on the road - Mama's first...


...then baby's


I also found some flowers trying to grow in the white, cold patches...




Up on top the views were misty and totally jaw dropping...




I still got some mud, but nothing like the day previous.


Just so you know, even though I brought all that "extra" clothing, I still froze my buns off on the way down, but who cares, I had a super great spring adventure on my single-speed.