Slush, Mush, and Crust

I've been experiencing a local, global warming trend here lately, which makes riding conditions change with both elevation and time of day. Early in the morning there is a nice crust that I can typically ride on top of nearly anywhere. As the temps rise to above freezing the crust turns to mushy snow, and finally a bit slush at lower elevations. At higher elevations it only gets a soft and mushy.



There are lessons to be learned with all this local climate change going on. For example a few days ago I rode a beautiful crust to a new destination that was very cool, but on my return trip I had to slog through (post-hole) knee deep mush for 2-miles. The crust had warmed just enough that it would no longer support the bike or me so I sank. Oh well, it was still fun...I smiled through it all.




These snow condition changes are also a small challenge with riding, since in the crust I have what seems to be unending traction, whereas in the mush and slush I slip-n-slide quite a bit. I have definitely increased my riding skills this winter.



This is awesome!!!

The Super Fatback Bowl

It seems that over the last week we've had an attack of Global Warming here. I was trudging through knee-deep new snow last week praying for some for some of my snowmobile friends to make a track for me (which never happened that particular day). Today all that snow seems to be gone, the lower part of the mountain is soft and mushy (no to be confused with slushy, which is wasn't) whereas the top was better but still soft-ish feeling. The good part was that the snow was well tracked, which made forward momentum easier for the most part...whoohooo!



It was also a beautiful day, but something odd about the whole situation...I was all alone. This was very peculiar since I usually run across many snowmobiles on Sundays, especially on clear, windless days like it was today. Hmmm...It took me a while to figure out, not that I was really too concerned, that today was Stupid Bowl Sinday. I have no love for watching sports on the TV and I'm quite certain that my little fans screaming in my brain celebrating my new world record time trial climbing the Fatback up 2000-ft was louder than any crowd on TV watching a football game (in which the whole thing is more hype than sport). I win!