Snowy Shoes

This morning we had about an inch of fresh snow. Which is not that big a deal considering what a mediocre winter we've had in the northeast this year. But it did remind me of a run from a couple of weeks ago.

We woke up on Saturday morning to 5 inches of the white stuff. Milo and I had a trail run planned and were looking forward to it all that much more now that the snow has fallen.


Prior to the realization of the snow accumulation, I planned to go to Black Rock and get a medium distance run in on the fire roads. With the new snow fall the plan still held true.

So we got up and out early, the drive to the forest was not to difficult, and we arrived just as the sun was rising over the ridge.

I made my final preparations put my gloves on, let Milo out of the car and we were on our way.

We headed up Reservoir Road past the Science Center and into the woods. It took me a few minutes to settle my heart rate and get accustomed to the footing which was really much better than expected  (I had anticipated potential issues and brought along my Yaktrax just in case).

We continued along the mostly uphill grade and reached a comfortable pace and settled into a rhythm, we followed a set of ATV tracks that cut a nice path through the snow and provided some solid footing.

Just before we reached the two mile mark we reached The Great White Oak which is at a split in the path. I'm told that this oak was standing when George Washington and his troops traveled between his Headquarters in Newburgh NY and West Point.

We turned to the right and followed down one of my favorite stretches with near perfect solitude. We came across another fellow out walking his dog, enjoying the quiet morning as we were. Our dogs did the usual dog-to-dog greeting.

Again we were on our own in the peaceful and muffled woods. I don't know if there's anything as serene as being in the woods after a fresh snowfall. We took a left and carried on past Sphagnum and Tamarack ponds.

Here there were no longer any ATV tracks and we were cutting our own path in the snow. I had thought we may have been the first ones through today but I saw something that took me a while to figure out, mostly because it was most unexpected.

There were two irregular tracks in the snow on either side of the trail that I couldn't place. I wondered what they could be. When it finally struck me that they were mountain bike tracks. Only these tracks didn't have the knobby tracks normally associated with mountain bikes and actually left a very smooth imprint in the snow.

We began to circle back and came along the stone house which looked so quaint in the fresh snow. Black Rock will often let scouts do overnights here. I've had a hotdog or two here after helping the scouts plant trees on Arbor Day.

Milo asked for a treat and we began the stretch home past the Great White Oak and past Alack Meadow pond down the long downhill and past the science center again.

The covered footbridge was picturesquely covered in snow


The final 1/2 mile was ours... a brisk downhill and the sun came out over the valley as we  descended to the parking lot.





We dusted ourselves off and climbed into the car and headed for home to warm up with a grilled cheese and some tomato soup. Mmmm Mmmmm Good!




Final snowy mileage: 7.33
Time: 1:43:47

PS: The snow was gone 24hrs later