Sneaky Biking

We have this alternate schedule thing at work where if you work 80 hours in 9 workdays, you can take the final Friday of the period off. I try and take advantage of it, but somehow I rarely seem to succeed. Either personal things rob me of hours during the week (school meetings, doctor's appointments ...) or something comes up which requires my presence on what otherwise would have been a day off. This past Friday was no exception. I had taken a sick day earlier in the period to try and recover from bronchitis, and I had a meeting out in Sterling pop up for Friday morning. It was going to be another beautiful, unseasonably warm day - in the 70's in mid-March! - and so I was determined to take at least a little advantage of it, even if I couldn't get a full day off.

What's this? Our Sterling office is not far from the W&OD trail?! And there's a new, large W&OD trail parking lot nearby just off of Rt. 28?! Too good to pass up. Before I headed to the office Friday morning I threw my bike and gear into the back of my car. My Sterling meeting was done around lunchtime, and I headed over to the W&OD. For the second time in as many days I found myself using my car as a changing room to wriggle into exercise clothes. I'm pretty good at this by now - I once completely changed from a business suit into yoga clothes while driving down Rt. 7, thanks to a lot of red lights and traffic.

I headed west on the trail. Out past Rt. 28 the trail is much more open than the section by my house. It has almost a rural feel. Riding was a pleasure, even though there were plenty of Lance Armstrong wanna-be's out and about. I may sound old and curmudgeonly for saying this, but these people make me laugh (except when they're pissing me off). When I was growing up cycling was something you did for transportation and maybe light recreation. It wasn't a Sport with a capital "S". Certainly, no one donned special outfits for bike riding. Nowadays, though, you feel quite under-dressed if you venture out on the trail without your matching cycling jersey, tights - or better yet, singlet - and little bike socks and shoes. I admit to owning the most functional parts of cycling clothing: shorts with paddling and hard-soled bike shoes. I do not see any reason to adopt the rest of the costume. And I certainly see no reason to adopt the selfish view some of these folks have - that they own the trail and slower cyclists are unwelcome obstacles in their way.

Make no mistake - I am a slower cyclist. No one would mistake me for Lance Armstrong even if I took to wearing the bike racer outfit. No one would mistake me for Lance Armstrong even if I was dating Sheryl Crow (an idea I must say I find less objectionable than wearing the bike racer getup). This was the first time I had been on a bike in a long time and I was slooooow. According to my Forerunner I pedaled about 20 miles at an average speed of about 12 MPH. Admittedly, that included a bathroom break and a stop at the quarry overlook (!), but I think it's still a pretty accurate speed. I felt good though despite my slowpokedness - I pedaled 20 miles without feeling sore in the least afterward, I enjoyed the ride, and I look forward to more cycling this year.

After my ride I headed over to the nearby Wegman's shopping center looking for food. I was about to go into some chain food place when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the Sterling branch of Moby Dick House of Kabob! I ordered a felafel sandwich and powered up my computer to approve timesheets, something I had forgotten to do in the morning. The felafel was awesome - really hit the spot after my ride. I must admit to feeling some affinity for the folks who run these felafel-serving joints, though I'm not sure the semitic fraternal love would be returned.

Alas, I felt compelled to make good on my commitment to work the rest of the day, so at the conclusion of my little adventure I wriggled back into my work clothes and headed back to work.

St. Paddles Day

The first Thursday after the beginning of Daylight Savings Time was St. Patrick's Day. Sunlight for paddling and unseasonably warm temps - plenty of reason to raise a glass in celebration.

It's that swing time of year when dressing for the water temp means schvitzing in the boat, however dressing for the air temperature would have put me at risk had I wound up in the water. I'm reading a book written by an ocean rower, from which I've learned that while out at sea ocean rowers often row naked, particularly on the bottom, to avoid salt water rashes. I certainly wasn't ready for that. So I put on my drysuit over just a t-shirt (and pants, I was wearing pants!) as a compromise.

It was a small group: just Rob, Peter, Jen and I showed up at the marina. We were joined by Annette and a friend of hers who paddled down from Washington Canoe Club in OC-1s (outrigger racing kayaks). Suffice it to say, a good time was had by all. The group headed upriver to accommodate Annette and Pam, who ultimately needed to head in that direction to make it back to the Canoe Club. As expected, we got pretty warmed up. I wound up doing some sculling braces cool off - got my torso and the back of my head into the water, which was indeed cold. However, once the sun set it cooled off quite a bit and by the time we neared the marina I was glad for my drysuit.

After paddling we had our typical Noodles and Company dinner, then we crossed the Pentagon Row courtyard to Sine Irish Pub. The place was hopping, crammed with bleary-eyed revelers in green. In addition to the usual bar area they had set up extra keg coolers throughout the place serving green beer. Peter availed himself of this holiday-themed beverage, while the rest of us ordered Irish whiskeys. I usually don't drink after our Thursday night paddles, but the proximity of St. Paddy's Day and Purim (the one Jewish holiday when one is supposed to get drunk) was enough to convince me to deviate from my usual practice. I mean, two drinking holidays in one!

We made a toast of "Sláinte" to our good fortune for having had such a nice evening, and then we were on our way. Sometimes you don't even need a rainbow to feel you've found a pot of gold.

Winter XC Ski Weekend: Day 3

When you travel with a group you need to stay loose. The plans for Day three changed more times than I can count - snowshoeing, skiing, snowshoeing, hiking at Blackwater Falls, skiing ...When it came down to it, Peter, Suzanne and I went snowshoeing, most of the rest of the group went cross-country skiing, and Peter and Gina, after getting their usual late start, went hiking.

In the woods on show shoes

I had never been on snow shoes before. The other Peter was an experienced snowshoer. Suzanne and I strapped on our borrowed (from Dave & Cyndi) snowshoes and followed Peter into the woods. Well, other than Peter's initial preference for bushwhacking straight uphill, it was a blast. Skis let you move quickly through the snow, but you're somewhat constrained by terrain. Snow shoes let you go anywhere. We hiked alongside trails. We hiked off trails. We hiked up hillsides. We ran into the rest of the group at one point.

The day was much warmer. Saturday we had been wishing for more layers' Sunday we were stripping them off.

Were we having fun? By the midpoint of the day Suzanne and I were speculating where and when to get the best deals on buying snow shoes - a good sign for our enjoyment of the day, but a bad sign for the wallet.

The snowshoers were the first back to the lodge, but soon the rest of the group began to trickle in. Lunch for me was once again the spicy curry lentil soup. Peter and Suzanne, who weren't driving, each ordered beers and settled in. The Whitegrass lodge is the kind of place that invites you to hang out, except when it's jam packed (as it was on Saturday). As a result we lingered for a while before all heading our separate ways back home. A wonderful weekend.

Almost the whole group: Jen, Cat, Reggie, Dave, Cyndi and Rob (front table), Suzanne, Pe

ter, Nelson and Caroline (rear)

The trip home was like a trip between seasons. Some warmer weather was rolling in and as I left Canaan Valley the thermometer went from the 30's to the 50's pretty quickly. Back home it was near 60 degrees, which made me eager to ditch the thermal base layer I was wearing . That weather rolled into Canaan as well and a few days later the webcams were showing sad bare spots where we had been skiing. Well, I guess we timed it just right for some not-quite-spring skiing.

Everyone except Peter and Gina

Winter XC Ski Weekend: Day 2

Crazy conditions at the lodge - that's me betwen the ski racks

Wait a minute, this wasn't in the forecast! The weather forecast had called for a warming trend over the weekend, but Canaan Valley weather can be unpredictable. I awoke Saturday to cold temps, light snow, and fierce winds. I watched the snow swirl around as I ate breakfast at the inn and chatted with a couple of other guests, all skiers. I was in no hurry to get outside. Saturday was also the day we had figured on going telemark skiing, but it turned out that some of us preferred going back to Whitegrass for XC. I picked up Peter and Suzanne at Hypnocoffee in Davis and the three of us headed over to Whitegrass. Dave and Cyndi, Reggie and Cat, Rob, and Jen headed for Timberline to telemark. Gina and Peter slept in a while. Nelson and Carolyn headed out separately to ski.

Taking a break at a shelter. Note horizontal snowfall

Have I mentioned it was windy? The closest weather history I could find online just now was Petersburg, WV, which recorded gusts of 45 MPH. Whitegrass weather is more extreme than Petersburg so I'm guessing the winds were upwards of 50 MPH there. Peter, Suzanne and I sat for a while in the lodge watching the wind try to rip the flags off their poles, thinking that maybe we were a little crazy for even considering going outside. I regretted not having brought a full face mask and a few more layers. Finally we headed out for a warm-up run, so to speak, of Springer Orchard Trail. This took us right into the wind. I was glad for the ski goggles (not normally used for XC) that Teddy had given me for the trip. The force of the wind wad unbelievable and the snow ground against us like we were being sandblasted. I was wearing ski gloves with chemical handwarmers in them and my hands were still freezing. The water in the drinking tube from my Camelback water bottle froze. After about five minutes we stopped and questioned whether we were doing this just to prove a point, but we pressed on. Adding a pair of glove liners helped warm up my hands, and once we were into the woods we were somewhat shielded from the wind, so things got better. I'm glad we did, since conditions were great. Fresh powder over the existing base. The scenery was beautiful too. We skied for about two hours before heading back to the lodge for some marvelously warm soup (spicy curried lentil ... mmmmmmm). The afternoon was a similar story: back out into the blistering winds, this time to the Timberline trail. This is a beautiful trail which eventually leads into some woods. We skied for a while in the virgin snow of the woods, which was nice, though we were disappointed to find that the trail didn't take us to Timberline ski area (maybe we just didn't go far enough through the woods). Peter and I took a detour on the way back to check out a side trail while Suzanne headed back. Some time in the afternoon the snow stopped, but the winds remained pretty strong.

Late afternoon we left Whitegrass and after a quick stop at my inn to change (and yes, to check email) I headed over to the Purple Fiddle to meet up with the group. In addition to the hotel part of the Purple Fiddle, there are dorm type accommodations and a common area over the club portion - a kitchen, living room and pool table. We took over the living room area, broke out all the snacks and beverages we had with us, and ordered a stack of pizzas. Our original plan was to head downstairs to watch the band, but we wound up having such a good time just hanging out that we never made it down to the club - and heck, we could hear the band pretty well from upstairs anyway. I'm not sure how much pizza and snack food I had, but it was a lot - including a particularly wonderful blueberry goat cheese courtesy of Gina. I drank my share of single malt scotch (courtesy of Rob and Gina) and wine as well. Finally, one by one people started to peter out. I mean this literally, as Peter the elder was the first to go, falling asleep on the couch. Next Nelson and Carolyn headed to bed. Then came those of us who had to drive somewhere. Needless to say, plans for Sunday morning were left a little fuzzy.

Winter XC Ski Weekend: Day 1

Me, in the Whitegrass lodge

I headed up to West Virginia today for a ski weekend with a group of about a dozen friends. It was in part a celebration of one of us turning the big 4-0 (alas, she was the second youngest of the group), but mostly it was just a chance to hit the trails for some cross-country skiing and maybe telemark skiing and snow-shoeing.  Plans for the trip had been long in the making, but in the final analysis were a little short on details, at least to the engineering-inclined, with no particular agreed-upon arrival time. I figured I might be skiing by myself on Day 1 and so I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled into the parking lot at Whitegrass ski area and immediately spotted my friend Rob. He had car-pooled up with Suzanne and Jen and they had arrived just minutes earlier. Whitegrass is a funky 1950’s (or thereabouts) downhill ski area which today serves as a cross-country ski resort. The lodge is small and rustic. It feels like a restaurant in a college town which happens to rent skis. While the four of us were getting into our gear Peter and Gina showed up and five of us set out on one of the shorter loop trails as a warm-up (Suzanne had promised to wait and take a lesson with the other beginner, the other Peter). Rob was using telemark ski gear (a hybrid between XC and downhill). He quickly tired of trudging along the trail in the heavier gear and went back to play on the big slope. The rest of us continued the loop, passing through beautiful woods and a horse pasture with some friendly horses.

Peter, Gina, and Jen on Springer Orchard Trail

After this trail we stopped back at the lodge and met up with Peter and Suzanne, who were just finishing their lesson, Nelson and Carolyn, who had been skiing since early morning, and Dave and Cyndi. We relaxed for a little bit in the yurt (which I assume is there to help with the chronic over-crowding in the lodge) then went into the lodge for some food – spinach mushroom barley soup for me. The big group of us started to climb Three Mile trail (which, no surprise, is three miles long). Probably the most note-worthy part of this outing was a slightly out of control Dave whacking into and wiping out a woman who was stopped in the middle of the trail. Anyway, half way up the trail we realized how late it was so we turned around and skied down.

I must say that my skiing skills started out awful. I simply had no control on downhills and intentionally fell more than once because I couldn’t stop any other way. As I skied more I got more comfortable and I improved through the afternoon. My ancient ski gear, though continued its disintegration. Last year one of my boots broke in two while I was skiing the W&OD trail after one of the Snowmageddon storms. Today, the strap on one of my ski poles broke. I skied without a strap for the rest of the day but in the back of my mind I was working ideas for temporary fixes.

Waiting upstairs at Hellbenders. That's my foot on the right.

I was a late joiner to the trip. By the time I decided to go along most of the group made arrangements to stay at the Purple Fiddle in Thomas, WV – a funky hostel/nightclub. Since the Fiddle was full by the time I joined, I’m staying at the far nicer (but more expensive) Bright Morning Inn in Davis, just a few minutes away. For dinner the group – now swelled to a dozen with Catriona – decided to hit Hellbender Burrito, convenient for me since it was right across from where I was staying. It takes a while to seat 12 at a restaurant in a small WV town. Fortunately for us the restaurant had a little room upstairs to hang out in. This room felt like a college apartment – 1980’s vintage couch, beer sign, video games, junk. It was actually a cozy place to hang out for a while. Finally they called us, though we did have to eat split between two tables. I had a burrito with seitan (a wheat protein product), veggies, cheese and beans – good! I accidentally really doused my burrito with habanero sauce (I didn’t notice the bottle didn’t have a shaker top). That didn’t really slow me down any eating it and I had that wonderful burning sensation in my mouth when I was done.

Everyone had gotten up pretty early, so the combination of big burritos and beer on top of an afternoon of exertion did us in. It was an early night and we all headed back to our respective hotels to turn in.

Sports, Shooting Sports

I know this blog is usually about some fairly laid back activities like kayaking and hiking but today we go in a different direction. St. Ambrose said, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." I say, when in Virginia long enough, y'all are gonna wind up shootin' (and quoting saints, apparently).

There's a group within the local Mensa chapter (yes, I'm a member) called BLAM: Blazing Lightly Armed Mensans. It's a group of Mensans who meet once per month to go target shooting. The group usually meets at the shooting range at the national NRA headquarters and let me say that the average IQ in the place goes waaaayyyy up when the BLAM folks walk in the door. Oops, there I go again, giving in to the stereotype that people who like to shoot are a bunch of idiot yokels. I have to remind myself that target shooting is a perfectly respectable sport - heck, it's even in the Olympics, including my favorite odd combo, the biathlon. It's just that if you hang around gun ranges in Virginia it's very easy to conflate those who enjoy shooting with Confederate flag-waving rednecks.

As a further digression, I learned the other day that the official adoption of the Confederate Battle Flag (the well-known "stars and bars") took place right nearby in Fairfax, Virginia. Generals Beauregard and Johnston chose it because the official Confederate National Flag of the time looked a lot like the U.S. flag and on a battlefield it's important to be able to tell who's you friend and who's your enemy.

Anyway, back to shooting. I've always felt like a total know-nothing when I've gone out with the BLAM group since I have absolutely no background in shooting. To rectify this I signed up to take the NRA basic pistol course. I have to admit I couldn't believe it myself, but sometimes it's good to stretch a little bit beyond what you normally do.

The day of the course comes and I show up at the address given to find that it's a private house - a typical suburban McMansion in Fairfax (no Confederate battle flags in sight, though). I ring the bell and a pretty, petite woman about my age answers, assures me that I'm at the right place, and leads me into her family room. It's a typical McMansion family room: vaulted ceiling, giant TV, family photos. Nothing unusual at all ... except for the big collection of handguns spread out on the coffee table. Revolvers, automatics. Big guns, small guns. The woman who answered the door introduces herself as Tina, the instructor, and gives a little bit of her background. It turns out that she's former Secret Service, former ICE federal agent, former air marshall. I quickly figure out that this little Southern belle is in fact one tough chick.

I was the know-nothing of this group too. My fellow students included a guy who brought several of his own guns along, a woman who says she currently keeps a loaded revolver in her nightstand for "home protection", and an Indian guy whose name was sufficiently difficult to pronounce that he went by "Z". Z is a current gun owner too. The class was a few days after the Tucson shooting of Rep. Giffords, which most present took as a sign that we all need to be carrying guns to protect ourselves from gun-wielding crazies. The majority opinion in our little group is that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and that as a result we all need to be armed.  I find myself once again a little bit of an outlier, but I keep my mouth shut.

Politics and paranoia aside, the course was very well taught. I learned everything I was looking to learn and feel much better prepared to hang out with the BLAM crowd. The class was supposed to end with a trip to the range at the Blue Ridge Arsenal but the range was 100% booked by a law enforcement agency doing practice. Instead, I met up one on one with Tina at the range a couple of days later before work. I opted to shoot .22 - the smallest caliber - so I could work on form without the bigger kick of larger guns. We went through a box of 100 rounds. Again, Tina proved to be an excellent instructor and I got better with each clip. Finally, my very last shot went right through the center of the bullseye. Success! I feel ready to start listening to country music and driving a pickup ... oops, there's that stereotype again.

A True Ice Pirates Paddle

The Chesapeake Paddlers Association has a number of weekly paddling groups, all of which finish up their seasons in late October when the water and weather turn cold. The hardcore nutballs of the Georgetown group continue paddling past the official end date. Known as the Ice Pirates, this hale and crazy group paddles year-round, weather permitting. I'm a part-time Ice Pirate myself. It's nice to use those Thursdays in winter to do something else - yoga, music, anything inside where it's warm and cozy. But there's also something very special about being out on the river in the winter when it's cold and quiet, so I show up to paddle at least once per month through the winter.

Last year was not kind to Ice Pirating. With the Snomageddon snowstorms and extremely cold weather, the river was too frozen to have paddled on, even if you could have gotten to it. This year also got off to an inhospitable start as an early cold wave froze the river in mid-December. This past week, though, there was a warm spell and reports started to come in that the river, while frozen in Georgetown, was navigable below Gravely Point. I was the source of one of those reports, having gone for a speedwalk by the river Christmas morning.

So mid-week the emails started flying: Was anyone paddling? Was it even possible? Advisable? After discovering that the Park Service locks up Gravely Point at night we decided to chance Columbia Island Marina. A group of six of us showed up to take our chances on this titanic adventure.

The marina has bubblers which keep the water moving thereby reducing freezing around the boats in the docks. Most of the lagoon was frozen, but we were able to get out by hugging in close to the docks. Once out on the river we saw that it was frozen upriver, frozen out in the middle of the river, but open along the Virginia shore. We headed that way to see how far we could get.

About five minutes into our trip we ran into an obstacle: an ice field. A section of the river which had been frozen was in the process of thawing but was still covered in large, chunky sheets of ice. We could see the ice field was only a few hundred feet long and decided to try to cross it. Getting through took a combination of trying to shove ice sheets out of the way with your paddle, poling against them to move your boat (there was too little open water to paddle normally), running your boat up and over ice, and just generally crunching along. We made it through, though it was more than a little nerve-wracking to do so. The traversal took its toll on my paddle too; when I got home I noticed I had chewed up one of the edges of the paddle a bit. Not a problem. I was using one of my homemade wooden Greenland paddles; I'll just sand out the damages..

Once we made it through the ice field it was smooth going. The river was open and the winds were calm. We paddled along through the crisp air most of the way to the southern end of National Airport (a security truck did come out and take a look at us at one point but must have decided we didn't look threatening). I was warm in my dry suit; only my hands were cold. There is just no answer to keeping your hands warm when paddling in cold water. As we neared the bottom of the airport we started to hit some more ice and decided that maybe it was time to turn back.

The trip back was much like the way out. The ice field seemed a little worse on the way back. The night way cold and maybe the river was refreezing. Maybe we were a little more tired and a little less excited. Or maybe we just didn't pick  as good a route through the ice. It took all of us a while to pick our way through the ice. Caroline and I were the last ones to make it through, but we made it.

Back at the marina I paid the price for not having brought gloves. My hands were cold, cold, cold as I changed out of my drysuit and loaded my boat. The loss of manual dexterity I experienced even on dry land in upper 30's temps is a sobering indicator of what to expect in case of a capsize. Yikes. But enough of that ...

Dinner was, as usual, at Noodles & Company, where we toasted our having truly earned the Ice Pirates name. But I'd still be happy if global warming had kept the river ice free for us.