on the ninth day of bikeness

. . . not a lot of riding was done. Zero, actually. But a worthy substitute was in play. Snowshoeing is the new cycling, don'tcha know.

Patty and I headed back up to 4th of July Pass to bang around in the woods on our 'shoes.  We hit some untracked stuff, such as the above.  In other places, a post-holein' ungulate had broken trail for us.

And in others, quite a different beast had broken trail.  I guess my assumption that gates like this limit motorized access was pretty naive.  Sno-mos get around them just fine.

I was on this same trail yesterday on my fatbike, pre sno-mo tracks, and there was no way to ride it. I would have loved to have had my bike with me today, to see if it was rideable. It sure felt firm enough. Sort of.  When I think about fatbike-potential scenarios, this is one that gets me sort of excited - light traffic, off the beaten patch sno-mo-groomed trails.  The sno-mo super highways would suck, and bikes would be most unwelcome anyways, but on trails like this, no one would mind seeing bikes and you'd just get off to the side if you heard a sno-mo coming and I'm sure everything would be just hunky dory.

Today was about 'shoeing though, and the queen of her new sport showed up, in all her winter vibrance.

If Patty looks like she is laughing at me and not with me in this next pic, you are an astute observer indeed.  I had just  done the klutziest snowshoe mad-scramble from the camera to the scene, in order to beat the camera self-timer.  Good to know that I can still amuse my wife.

It would have been a crime to have passed by Wolf Lodge Bay without stopping to check out the seasonal bald eagle convention that gathers around the running of the spawning kokanee.  I don't have the photographic skills to do it even an ounce of justice, but these birds are just incredible.  There's nothing frantic about even one motion they make - it's all pure gracefulness. Majestic suckers.

Going in for the kill.  A bad day for one certain fish.

 A different kind of bird . . .

So another really awesome day.  Wow, going back to work on Wednesday is gonna be brutal.  I'm hereby concentrating on not thinking about it ahead of time.