Snowshoeing
Riding with Courtney didn't happen today, not surprisingly. I did get to spend the day with Eric, Angela, and Stella, in the snowy mountains. We went to Snoqualmie Pass, parked at the bottom of the ski slopes, and hiked down the road to get into the woods.
Like all things in the Seattle area, snowshoeing seems to be enormously popular. Not only is that because it's an outdoor activity you can do in the winter, it also requires expensive specialized gear. Seattle people LOVE to spend lots of money on gear that used to be cheap a generation ago. This may be obvious, but snowshoeing is just hiking, in the snow. It's a little bit cooler when you're not on a packed down path where everyone else has already trod. But it's rather slow doing and it's either cold or too hot. I think I'd be a bigger fan of any type of skiing or snowboarding for the speedy factor.
I hadn't realized we were steadily ascending for the first couple miles of the hike. I'm dumb like that. It took us close to two hours to get to the point where we stopped, ate sandwiches, then turned around. The descent was muuuuuuuch faster. We even ran parts of it and that was almost fun enough. But considering we drove at least an hour outside of the city just to walk in the snowy mountains for a few hours, I don't think I'll be dropping $150+ on a pair of snowshoes any time soon. Or ever. I borrowed Terri's. I'll stick to bikes and running and boxing. Hiking is fine since you can at least do it without any special gear.
We stopped in North Bend to get some dinner then again in Bellevue to look at the electric Ford Angela wants. The C-Max looks a bit like a miniature minivan, like the Honda Fit. The fully electric one is fairly pricey but the hybrid model (non plug in) starts in the low $20k range. It seems like good competition for the Prius C.
All that activity has me pretty tired. Time to settle down in front of the TV to continue this long weekend.
Like all things in the Seattle area, snowshoeing seems to be enormously popular. Not only is that because it's an outdoor activity you can do in the winter, it also requires expensive specialized gear. Seattle people LOVE to spend lots of money on gear that used to be cheap a generation ago. This may be obvious, but snowshoeing is just hiking, in the snow. It's a little bit cooler when you're not on a packed down path where everyone else has already trod. But it's rather slow doing and it's either cold or too hot. I think I'd be a bigger fan of any type of skiing or snowboarding for the speedy factor.
I hadn't realized we were steadily ascending for the first couple miles of the hike. I'm dumb like that. It took us close to two hours to get to the point where we stopped, ate sandwiches, then turned around. The descent was muuuuuuuch faster. We even ran parts of it and that was almost fun enough. But considering we drove at least an hour outside of the city just to walk in the snowy mountains for a few hours, I don't think I'll be dropping $150+ on a pair of snowshoes any time soon. Or ever. I borrowed Terri's. I'll stick to bikes and running and boxing. Hiking is fine since you can at least do it without any special gear.
We stopped in North Bend to get some dinner then again in Bellevue to look at the electric Ford Angela wants. The C-Max looks a bit like a miniature minivan, like the Honda Fit. The fully electric one is fairly pricey but the hybrid model (non plug in) starts in the low $20k range. It seems like good competition for the Prius C.
All that activity has me pretty tired. Time to settle down in front of the TV to continue this long weekend.