Cure for the Common Winter

First, buy a pair of snowshoes. Mine are the black MSR Classic Denali. REI in Santa Fe rents snowshoes.

Then, get some overboots to protect your feet from getting soaked. I treasure my overboots from Forty Below. Before I started using them, my toes would freeze while snowshoeing!

Old ski poles with plastic baskets would be helpful although I once saw someone snowshoeing in Valle Canyon on wooden snowshoes with no poles - must have tremendous balance! I'm able to find ski poles cheaply at the Jemez House Thrift Shop in White Rock.

Next, add some snow - fresh snow is wonderful and we're getting a lot of it this winter in Los Alamos!

I took the cure today. At first, I thought I'd attempt something epic like going up the Nail Trail to FR2998 and out to Camp May Road, breaking trail for 4 miles round-trip. Let's see - with 1:30pm start - I would have gotten back to my car after sunset!

Fortunately, I had time for further reflection during the drive to the Pajarito Canyon Trailhead. I was listening to Colin Fletcher's book River in which he follows the Colorado from its source to the sea. He mentions that at age 67, he preferred taking time to appreciate nature's beauty more than merely accumulating fast miles.

I started out in that spirit, only intending to explore the forest south of Pajarito Canyon, below the south Perimeter Trail. For a while, the strategy worked well. I saw lots of rabbit and squirrel tracks and elk tracks in the snow, heard a woodpecker, saw where hungry squirrels tore branch ends from ponderosa pines and threw them to the ground. I appreciated the sunshine, the clear New-Mexico-blue skies, the orange of the gambel oak and all the beautiful white snow! I even spotted a cross country skier above me on the south Perimeter Trail.

The snowshoeing only got mildly epic when I was crossing one of the several drainages that come down to West Jemez Road. To get out of the drainage, I had to bull my way up a short but steep hill. I used my ski pole baskets to tamp down the snow ahead in an attempt to give myself the advantage of a "broken" trail. Near the top, I grabbed onto a gambel oak to hoist myself up. It wasn't so much that I was slipping backwards but I wanted to get up in a way least damaging to my feet. If my posterior tibial tendon dysfunction and plantar fasciitis survive this abuse, it's all due to my wonderful custom made orthotics!

At this point, I should give you more information about MSR Classic Denali. They are very short, only 22" long, and don't provide much flotation in deep snow unless you weigh less than 125 pounds and I don't. You can buy tails to add more length and flotation but I tried them last year and didn't see much improvement.

The best use for MSR Classic Denali snowshoes are on packed trails. However...they do have very good crampons both under the toe and ladder crampons along each side which helps when I pretend I'm Spiderman! I break trail in deep snow with them anyway. I prefer their light weight and aggressive crampons. I'm sure that without them, I would have had to crawl up the short but steep hill.

After crossing the pint-size drainage, I soon came to a much deeper unnamed side canyon (see waypoint on map below) and decided that it would be a good idea to go uphill to intersect the south Perimeter Trail and follow that back instead of blandly following my broken trail back. I had gotten into a shady area so I was also happy to head uphill toward the comfort of the sun. I topped out in an area of thin snow with rocks showing through but helpfully flat. There were good views of the Sangre de Cristos to the east and views north toward Los Alamos.

Using my compass to keep trending west, I eventually hit the south Perimeter Trail. It hadn't been trod on since the last snowfall but I could see where the new snow had covered the old tracks. I didn't see fresh tracks until I got closer to where the south Perimeter Trail intersects the Pajarito Canyon Trail. Then I saw lots of snowshoe tracks. The cross country skier I had seen earlier had turned around not far from the trailhead. The snow became thin and a little icy near trailhead. I got to my car around 4pm. My GPS only read 1.78 miles but I had a good time!