the road less traveled



West Pine Creek, Gallatin National Forest

Since I haven't been on a backcountry expedition in a few weeks, Lincoln and I decided to gear up and head to West Pine Creek for a little forest trek.  We parked a few miles down from the trailhead since the road hadn't been plowed and walked in, Lincoln on his split board and me on snow shoes with my snowboard on my back.  We have been running and biking on this trail but haven't heard from anyone if this is a good place to hike for turns.  We thought we'd give it a try and if it turned out to be crap, at least we'd still get in some good exercise.

Well it turned out to be crap but at least we got in some good exercise!  It looked as if hardly anyone was using the trail possibly because the snow pack was not condusive to hiking - a soft 6" crust sitting on top of snow soup of variable thickness.  Even though I followed in Lincoln's skin tracks, I broke through a lot on the way up and had to slog to keep up with Mr. Turtle Wheels.  We got in a couple of measly turns but it wasn't steep enough to get up any speed and we ended up poling ourselves down the road back to the truck...yes, poles and snowboards!  Slightly awkward and thus very amusing.

Now back at the house sipping Irish Hot Choclates and getting ready to roast some chicken and root vegetables which will taste extra delicious after today's effort.