the Way of the Turtle

SNOW, SLUSH, ICE, & RAIN
9.2 Mile Run in the Albany Pine Bush
Tuesday, February 16, 2016

First snow day this year coincided with a big warm-up... from right around freezing for the first few hours I was up (with icy precipitation to go with the temperature) the temperature shot up over 20 degrees in a few hours. 50 degree days in February are rare enough that I had to get out for a run, despite the forecast of rain all afternoon (accurate, as it turned out.)

I thought to run out of Dicaprio Park over in Guilderland, since I could do two shorter out-and-backs and swap gear if needed - but the town doesn't plow the park drives in the winter, probably because the whole focus is on the playing fields for soccer and lacrosse (just check out the park webpage, where it talks about how it's popular with hikers and birders but then mentions the recent construction of bathrooms and a pavilion for the use of the soccer and lacrosse teams) and those guys don't have much use for outdoor playing fields in the winter. So instead I headed over to Willow Street and the very icy parking for the Great Dune trailhead.

From there I headed over to the Madison Avenue Pinelands (which may need to be renamed, since they're doing major thinning of the pines there to make it an open pine barrens... whoops, I just checked the website and apparently it is now known as the Madison Avenue Barrens) and took the "new" purple trail over to Dicaprio Park. The rain was coming down pretty steadily, which meant any snow was slush and much of the trail was doubling as a stream and/or small ponds. Fortunately I'd worn my snowshoeing socks, which are great at retaining heat even when they're wet. Overall it was slow going, especially at the stream ravines - nothing like trying to descend a steep, slippery, frozen trail to cross a bridge and then climb back up on the opposite side.

At the park I decided to check out the new trail over to the Hunger Kill Barrens, which meant making a somewhat precarious descent into a stream ravine and then an equally precarious ascent on the other side along a section of trail that traverses the hillside - without a bench cut to level out the trail. Fortunately that section was fairly short. I've only visited the Hunger Kill Barrens one other time, and today didn't stay any longer than it took me to do the half mile loop through the woods before heading back. One thing that was interesting was how much the temperature dropped down in the ravine. The rain was easing up as I headed through the park, and pretty much stopped entirely by the time I got back to the Madison Avenue Barrens. I finished up with a short loop through the Great Dune section - everything was pretty icy, and I was getting tired, so it continued to be slow going.

Still, despite the wet weather - once I got warmed up I really enjoyed spending a few hours out on the trails. This time of year I don't get to do that very often during daylight... and the warmer weather was a real plus, after the deep freeze this past weekend. I've pretty much given up on snowshoe season at this point - my guess is this weekend's races will either be trail races or cancelled, though it's certainly possible we could have snow for the last few weeks of the racing season after that - and I'm definitely looking forward to warmer weather and more time out on the trails as spring arrives.

JMH