I need to be frank with you. I need to fully admit that I am quite excited about life right now. Could that be the caffeine talking? Oh, it most definitely is, or at least the sugar rush from the chocolate chips that keep finding their way into my mouth. But it’s not only that. You see, Brian and I have stepped up our commitment to living life to it’s fullest, and right now, we’re winning. Thankfully we’re not winning like Charlie Sheen was ‘winning’, but we are in fact winning.
Now, this does not mean our lives are all roses and sunshine. We don’t bolt out of bed at the sound of the alarm, ready and eager to take on the day. I assure you that does not happen. I know. I’m there every time we hit snooze (again and again), then finally, slowly drag ourselves out of bed and yawn at the morning. But we are still winning. We’re winning because, aside from the fact that we are not morning people, we are driving ourselves to seek out more adventures and having a blast with it all.
A little back story on our current drive.
Brian and I both had a super busy fall this past year and did not push ourselves to adventure as much as we wanted to. So we decided that come winter 2013 we were going to throw ourselves back into life with the Westlander Winter of Fun (WWF)! For Christmas (2012) Brian even started a WWF calendar where we’ve since been planning adventures of all types.
And that, really, is why we’re winning right now.
So what’s our latest adventure? Oh, it was an incredible weekend of wintery fun!
Ah, but before I dive into it, I should introduce the other players in this particular adventure. This time we adventured with our awesome niece, Alison and her equally awesome husband, Paul (with, thankfully, his equally awesome Wisconsin winter driving skills). The four of us adventure in traveling pretty well together, so it seemed only natural that we would come together for this weekend adventure too!
Ok, so our incredible weekend of wintery fun included diving into a sampling of cross-country skiing
and snowshoeing!
Both were pretty much completely new to us, so we made sure that our adventures were well padded with a tidbit of luxury and recovery. We preceded the adventure with a little magic and separated our days with delicious bbq and an obligatory soak in a motel hot tub. I’ll be perfectly honest; we selected our weekend location based entirely around the presence and availability of said hot tub. Like I mentioned before, winning.
Our adventure began with an early morning drive out to Laurel Ridge x-country ski center. Trust me, this in itself was an adventure given the sometimes unplowed roads and snow drifts building up in the middle due to high winds. Our Wisconsinite handled it like a champ – no fear, just extreme concentration.
We arrived at the park to find powdery snow all around and a nice cozy warming hut planted at the head of several trails. We rented our sets of boots, skis, and poles and then spent the obligatory 20-30 min testing out equipment, bundling up, and sun screening in preparation. I’m always amazed at how long it takes to put on all the winter gear. And then, finally, around 1pm or so, we headed out to the trails!
I think the skiing itself could best be described for us as “play”. We played cross-country skiing like little kids play in the backyard. We skidded here and there. We tried classic style and skating. We pushed our postures into what we thought were appropriate looking forms (ever thankful that a hot tub awaited us that evening). And sometimes we got the hang of gliding along for a few strides, or even a decently measurable distance. But, as we’ll fully admit to anyone, we were never really in control of the process.
Sometimes we looked more in control.
Other times it was a bit more obvious we were sliding along for the ride.
But, also like little kids at play, we had a super fun time skiing around and trying out all these new movements and feelings. We fell all over the place, laughing at ourselves at least most of the time. (Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we did not capture the slips, falls, or face plants that also dotted our outing, on camera… trust me, they were all quite funny and did not lead to injury.) And, we skied around until we were dog tired and just plain done and ready for our naps.
And then, like adults, we drove an hour back to our motel, rallied for a delicious dinner, and enjoyed a paper coffee cup of wine while soaking our muscles in the motel hot tub (as promised).
We crashed. We crashed hard. We are, as it turns out, not little kids with boundless energy. We woke up the next morning sore, stiff, and really really not ready to ski again. We had no desire to drive back an hour to the same place. We thought about just eating and watching movies. But we also wanted to take full advantage of the time we had out near the snow. And then the idea of snowshoeing came up. Snowshoeing? Well, that could be something. Something that involves wandering in the snow but isn’t skiing. Something that uses slightly different muscle groups. And something we hadn’t really tried before. Snowshoeing it was, then.
We were off to a much closer spot in New Germany State Park. We found the lodge where we rent equipment; and we found a wonderfully welcoming firepit to cozy up to, a small shop for gear and food, and plenty of tables with a view of the snow-covered lake outside. It was beautiful. We were definitely going to reward our efforts with a break at this lodge after our experience. But we had to have the experience first.
Snowshoeing, as it turned out, was far easier than we had anticipated. We thought we might have trouble walking and would be falling all over ourselves. But, for the most part, it was like taking a hike in the woods.
We went out of our way to tromp through powder, of course. That’s where the snowshoes are most useful and most fun.
And it is definitely more effortful than simply hiking. You have to pick up each foot a little more and place it a with a bit of care as you can’t see what is under the snow. Small branches and shrubs on the ground become a danger if they get stuck through the holes in the shoes. I think each of us got claimed by a branch or two at some point. But for the most part, you tramp along in the powder, and the size of the shoe prevents you from ever really losing balance over the terrain. While we grew tired and hungry from our hiking, we felt very in control of our actual movements, and once again, had a pretty amazing time taking a walk in the snowy woods.
Oh, of course afterwards we dove on our bowls of chili like we hadn’t eaten in a week. We put our shoes by the fire to dry out and warm up. And I celebrated a bit extra with a post-chili hocho and ice cream. We probably would have spent much longer in the lodge if we could. But by the time we finished stripping off gear and eating we needed to move on, begin the drive back home, leave our winter wonderland behind (tear), and embrace the week to come.
Overall thoughts on this adventure? It was amazing. In an attempt to not completely overdo it (just a little), I haven’t expounded on all the details. But I can say that not a moment was taken for granted from the time we left Philly Saturday afternoon, to the time we got back Monday night. And through each excursion, we constantly marveled at the amazing beauty that is a quiet, wintery, snow-laden forest; and at our own luck for the opportunity to experience it all.
Overall opinion of these sports? Both experiences were pretty equally awesome and come highly recommended by us newbies. They’re uncomplicated enough to try out on your own, but you can always take a lesson if you prefer that. Next time we might try a lesson to get a better grasp on the forms.
Are these sports for everyone? Probably not. But, you might want to spend a day or two giving them a try if you:
- Love downhill skiing but want to break it up with something a bit more aerobic.
- Hate downhill skiing, but still want to experience a bit of winter magic and earn your lunchtime chili and hocho (or beer).
- Love the outdoors in general, and wandering in the woods in particular, but never really tried it through snow.
- Hate the outdoors, but only because of all the stickiness and bugs (no bugs in the winter!).
- Need to do something (anything!) to kill cabin fever (and you live near-ish to snow).
- Want to try a new activity and are not concerned about falling about in the snow.
- Just want to experience a Robert Frost poem first hand.