An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

The weather was unseasonably warm this weekend, a brief respite from the really nasty winter we've been having. Saturday I took advantage of the weather to work outside on sanding the Greenland paddle I'm making (which is now ready for finishing). Sunday I popped awake at about 6:30 AM with one thought in mind: to get outside and enjoy the weather (it was cloudy, but it was warm!!). After coffee and a glance at the newspaper I headed out the door to Great Falls. I pulled into the the Difficult Run parking area at about 8 AM to find a smattering of cars already there. My fellow early morning nature lovers were an affluent bunch; the cars included a Mercedes, a BMW, an Audi, a Range Rover (and of course a Subaru). This has no bearing on the story - but I notice cars. I hiked Difficult Run Trail to the Old Carriage Road, then onto the Matildaville Trail all the way up to the "civilized" part of the park where I pulled out my Thermos(TM) and sipped coffee to the accompa...

When Tall Tom emailed me about kayaking on President's Day I checked the weather forecast. High of 35 degrees today, but 60 by next weekend. My first thought was to suggest waiting a couple of days for the arrival of warmer weather, but there's no time like the present, so I said "yes". Tom had been a little unclear about whether the 2 PM time was arrival or launch. I got there a little before two to find Tall Tom and Fairly Tall Tim already there and close to being ready to go (Not Tall Deke had dropped out). I arrived dressed for paddling (yes, I drove to the launch in my drysuit) and so I was ready to go in something approximating a jiffy. The ramp at the boat launch hadn't been plowed. Being the only one of the three of us with a plastic kayak, I cavalierly tossed my boat onto the ground at the top of the ramp and gave it a shove. As I had hoped, it slid nicely all the way down to the water. Seeing this, Tom implored me to repeat the stunt, except thi...

It's been too @$@#$^&* cold to go out paddling - or do pretty much anything outdoors. The river is frozen and the weather is bleak. Fortunately, there's good fun to be had indoors - for example, at kayak rolling sessions at some local pools. Here's a video I put together at last Sunday's session at Lee District Rec Center: