How I Got Hot and Bothered in Snow Shoes

So I went snowshoeing. And it was easy, and it was fun. It was also a major workout, which frankly, I wasn't really expecting. But it's more fun than being on a treadmill.

Also, there's incentive to keep going when you're snow shoeing, because if you stop half way through, you'll freeze to death if you don't walk back to the car again. Winter sports are extreme like that.

When I went down to the snow shoe rental place last night, I told the guy I was a novice and he should give me "beginner" snow shoes.

"No such thing," he said. "Can you walk?"

"Well, yes," I stammered, "didn't you see me walk in here?"

"If you can walk, you can snow shoe. You'll be fine."

So I trusted him. And gave him $12. And then he gave me some lovely powder blue snow shoes.

My friend Patrice picked me up this morning at 8:30 on the dot. She's my bookkeeper, and tends to be exact. Which is a good thing for bookkeepers. We picked up Renee next (who has a cute pink coat and photographs well) and drove to the snow park, just 10 minutes away from my house, to miles and miles of well marked trails.

You'd think I'd go snow shoeing every day, since I live so close and I like the snow and I'm good at walking, but there's a first time for everything, even for people who live in a winter wonderland like Bend, OR.

We put on our snowshoes in the parking lot, looked at the map to make sure we wouldn't get lost, and then started hiking over the hills and through the woods, following the little blue snow shoe guy signs.

In no time at all, we were huffing and puffing and saying "Why am I so tired? This seems like it should be so easy, we're just walking!"

So then I thought up some scientific answers that had to do with the width of the snow shoe making our legs do physics they weren't used to doing, which made the muscles we didn't know we had work on obscure things, like picking up a snow shoe and putting it down again. As we were walking.

Everyone believed me, and then we got to the shelter and sat down in the recliner that someone must have hauled in, probably on skis, or with a snow mobile, to rest. It seems like it'd be too hard to carry something this heavy while walking in snow shoes. But that's just me being lazy, I guess.

We had lunch, then we hiked back to the parking lot.

That's it. The whole thing took less than 3 hours from door to door, including lunch and dropping the shoes back at the rental place. The best news? I felt sufficiently worked out enough to eat a piece of bacon for lunch as a reward.

Let this be a lesson to you. If you go snowshoeing, you get to eat bacon.

The end.

P.S. I posted more pictures on Facebook, since for some reason Blogger only wants me to post one picture per post these days, which means I may have to switch this whole entire operation over to WordPress. That'll show it. Sheesh.