Yesterday I expected the walk to be physical. I expected it to be around 21 kilometres. I also saw that it was meant to snow overnight. It got me to question whether it made sense to do the hike. I went anyway. In the end I walked 35 thousand steps according to at least one device. That’s a lot of walking, especially in snow that was up to 30 centimetres deep at moment.
When I went snowshoeing as a child I was photographed and it was used by the St Cergue Tourism board. I still have that poster in a room. Since then I went snowshoeing a few years ago and didn’t really enjoy it. The snowshoes didn’t feel comfortable. A few weeks ago I saw that people were planning a snowshoeing trip so I checked that they were set to my snowshoe size but skipped.
Yesterday it snowed enough for the snow to get some depth. I went for a walk with snowboard trousers, a proper winter coat and the Xero Xcursion Fusion in snow that reached above their rim without getting snow or water onto my socks until I removed the shoes at the end of the walk. They’re minimal waterproof shoes that have “FeelTrue®” soles. These are thin, minimal soles. Despite this my feet felt warm for the entire walk with normal soles.
Yesterday it snowed for several hours and that snow was covering the path to my house. When I saw the ground turn from asphalt black to grey, to white I decided to go and start clearing the snow. It’s easy to clear snow when you have three or four centimetres, rather than more. At first it was light and easy to move so I cleared the path once, and then a second time, and then a third, and by the third I decided to stop.
The most striking thing about a winter with little to no snow is that there is no noise. Normally ski lifts clank, people talk and there is a lot of noise
When there has been very little snow the ski lifts are turned off and the mountains are quiet. This is when you realise the impact of winter sports.
In summer you hear cowbells.
Yesterday we had a snowy day. I saw that the snow was beginning to pile up so I went and cleared the snow for fun. I could have left it as it was but I saw an opportunity to have some weight training, for free.
I regret that I didn’t set a fitness tracker to track the snow shovelling as weight training. It took a while and I got at least 2500 steps out of it, but as I wasn’t counting this as a workout the calories burned was counted differently.
Today I went for a walk in the snow. It wasn’t snowing and I wasn’t in a blizzard but there was snow on the ground. I like when it snows because the landscape looks different. It reminds us of a different age, of old post cards, and a time when the planet was cooler.
A snow covered path with footprints
The season has changed. Visually tomorrow or the next day the snow will be gone and the landscape will look ordinary.
Documentally - Dec 3, 2008
Wow, looks really heavy.. you going out in it? Looks like there is a strange red UFO hovering over the roof there.. ;)
For the first few seconds, then I opened the windows and everything was fine once more :-). There’s a chance I’m going out in it a little later today. Want to get some video of a flash mob in Lausanne.
Here, some qik snowfall, on the last day of the year