Hours and Hours and Hours of the BL

There was a snowstorm Thursday that left around 10 inches of the fluffy kind of snow.  Ian had messaged me Friday night asking me to look for signs of snowmobiles crossings along the BL.  I did see they'd crossed Rt 9 at the power lines near the gravel pit.  He and Emma had done reconnaissance from the other direction.  Some of the crossings showed signs of traffic, but a couple didn't.  Did that mean the river crossings were open?  Well, time would tell.

Maureen, Ben (who I know I've seen before, but don't really know), Ian, Emma, Blaine and Xar were there for the chilly start.  Maureen was sporting snowshoes.  Though the snowmobiles had been through, the dry snow was not packed.  It was the running-in-sugar or mashed-potatoes conditions.  I think Maureen had the best grip.  I was amazed at how quickly Ian, Emma, Blaine and Bed pulled out of sight.  How could anyone run that fast without traction?!

Xar and I ran along appreciating Brad dressed in his finest.  It wasn't long before I was hot.  We were working very hard.  I need to find a way to pump this heat to my Nathan Pack tube.  It froze early and hard.

Maureen bounded back towards us.  She had to keep it short since she is just coming off a stress fracture.

Xar and I pushed on.  Out the back boundary of the park onto the BL.  I only wanted to run 2 hours, so knew I wouldn't be running the entire loop.  Just before the 1 hour mark, I checked with Xar on her time limit.  None.  Hmmm....I kept wanting to show her more of the loop.  In the gravel pit, I told her about the pair of black labs Rick and I always see coming out of the woods up ahead.  And then, almost on cue, they bounded out of the woods!

They immediately pounced on a moose carcass that we'd just spied.  Their person came on skis.  She wasn't worried about them with the bones.  She said they quickly tire of the heavy treat.  We visited with Angus and Porter for a while.  The pace was slow, but our time always looks way worse cause of the stops to smell the roses(?) along the way.

We didn't go much farther after the pups; I was going to be well over 2 hours.  On the way back, we fell through the wet spots several times.  Were we less careful or less caring?  Back in the park, we spotted a perfect natural lean-to.  We were pretty sure the Squirrel could actually use it in a pinch.

Wow!  That was a hard 9.15 miles, but, of course, we had a great time.

Saturday afternoon the snow started.  It just kept coming.  Sunday,I knew to leave extra time to clean off the car, but I didn't realize the roads would be that slow going.  A quick text to alert the Squirrel that I'd be a couple minutes late.  When I pulled into the lot, Xar and Mindy were both there.  We planned on the Beautiful Loop.

Incredibly, the trail was easier going than yesterday (to start out).  The new snow on top of the snowmobile track somehow gave better traction.  That was true for about 3 or 4 miles.  Somewhere in there, Mindy and I noticed Xar was falling off the back.  We stopped to wait, but she waved us on.  We decided we had to go.

This was very familiar.  Scout and Squirrel on another BL adventure.  We guessed where water was under the trail.  We did a decent job of staying fairly dry.  When we popped out onto Rte 9, Mindy took the time to dig out all the snow from under her Inov8's tongues.

I forgot how long the next stretch of power lines is.  We expected our lounge chairs any second.  We started accusing CMP of taking them.  When we came across a snomo bridge, I was thrilled that we didn't have to worry about the big water crossing.  I'd forgotten this new bridge from last year that only bridged a smaller rivulet.

When did this stretch end?  I kept thinking I saw the road crossing up ahead.  Where were our chairs?  That's where I planned on having a Happy Tot.  There!!!  We rejoiced!  Then there was much laughter trudging over to the recliners.  Man!  The snow was deep.  Was it here that the Squirrel suggested tunneling under the snow like her brethren do?  While we were clearing the chairs, a pileated woodpecker flew over, laughing at us.

Just after this fun, we came across the real river.  There were all kinds of caution open water signs.  We turned back to find the detour that Ian had discovered last season.  Finally, the road.  We had just a short jaunt to get back to the power line.  The second road crossing came much quicker than I expected.  Next would be the substation.

Snowmobile tracks lead us around to the left of the substation.  The water issues normal for this area were a non-issue.  Crossing Alan Rd we found that the snowmobile trails were closed due to CMP work.  We were going to head out anyway, but were unsure of exactly how the trail went.  We ran back to Alan Rd and up it to Sweetser.  From there we jumped on the power lines.  Even though there were no snomo trail, we knew this like the back of our hands.  Onward!  Whoa!  The drifts surprised us.  Man.  It. Was. Hard.  We periodically told ourselves this was great training.  Were any other Haliburton people doing anything like this?  Nah.

The bridge crossings were scarey.  The footing was dicey.  You couldn't even see where the bridges started and ended.  By the time we were at the bench, I asked Mindy if she had any problem with heading back down Elmwood.  Nope.  She was good with that.  I think yesterday's hours were catching up with me.  I was tired.  Even on the road, the footing wasn't great.  We drifted out towards the center when we could to get to the bare road.

We planned to go up Lunch Break.  The snowmobile trail turned off onto the original BL course.  We weren't sure we would be able to stay on course on Lunch Break.  OK, we'd follow the old way.  I'm glad we did.  It was truly beautiful.  I'm glad we always seem to be able to appreciate our run and where we run, no matter how tired.

Back in the park, I was too tired to deal with changing.  With no E&Ls to warm us, we just got in our cars and headed home.  Damn.  We did good.