Senior Hiking #382

41° RAIN!


Dec 13, 2010…up into the hills above our home…hike # 382

Drat global warming...it moved into Sandpoint yesterday and today the rain was pouring down hard at home and up at Schweitzer as well. We thought that better than hiking in rain on snow, we would head up to Schweitzer and hike the Nordic trails. While it would still be in wet snow, it seemed like a better plan. It might even turn to snow while we were there! According to the Schweitzer website, they were running under limited operation, experiencing very high winds as well as the rain and only three of the lower lifts were open.

Once in the truck, we headed down the hill when all of a sudden we were sliding down the hill sideways and then backwards. Holy Gamoly…it was scary. We did NOT want to go over the side. We finally came to a stop on the other side of the road, headed backward and Jim did his best to get the truck back home up the hill and into the garage. Plan B went into effect…we put the snowshoes on at the garage and headed up into the hills above our house. Water on the icy road is worse than new snow on ice.

We live at the fourth serious switchback on our mountain, and while there is one more home up above us, it is the last one, unoccupied for two years and for sale. The plow stops at our house. From our house up, it gets extremely steep and is difficult to walk on and impossible to drive on with ice under snow. We headed up into the woods and began to plow thru the downed trees and brush. There are only critter trails up there, now covered with snow. Lots of snow whacking…similar to bush whacking but with snow instead of nasty brush and alder. We covered the loop of about three miles in three hours. It was a nice change and a good workout. Saw two mule deer, one of which was lying down while the other ate. I took pics from afar thru the brush. The view spot was a joke in this thick fog but eventually we got a brief glimpse of the lake. Rain came down hard all day.

Left home 9:50
Up the hill from home 10:00
Got back home 1:00
Total miles hiked 3 miles
Total hiking time 3 hours