This is not my snowshoe
Anthony has been constantly reminding me to quit asking for snow. It snowed the first week we were here, but due to some unseasonably warm temperatures, everything melted and we haven't had any more snow until 2 days ago. I know that come springtime I won't be wishing for snow, but if it's 1 degree out, we might as well have snow, right? I also had ulterior motives. Everything looks so much prettier covered in a soft white blanket AND I really wanted to get my snowshoes on.
See? Even our driveway getting plowed looks charming. It's the snow, people! My oldest sister first introduced me to snowshoeing about 2 years ago - both of my sisters surprised me for my birthday, flew me up to Portland, OR and we had a birthday extravaganza! Part of the celebration included snowshoeing at Enid Lake near Mt. Hood and as soon as we did it, I was hooked.
All it takes to snowshoe are the shoes themselves, a couple of poles and a lot of extremely warm winter clothing. Disposable hand and feet warmers are also a must. Even though it was -15 with the wind chill, I wasn't even scared. Because here's what I wore:
Silky Heat Keeper long underwear pants and shirt
snowboarding knee socks
2 hooded sweatshirts
ski pants
ear muffs
knit cap over my hoodies
2 pairs of gloves
hand warmers in the gloves and feet warmers in the boots
down jacket
fleece neckwarmer
sunglasses
It was fantastic! The scenery wasn't quite as breathtaking as it was near Mt. Hood, but it's my scenery and I love it. Gigi went with me for a bit, but only for a short time because I was nervous about her little paws getting frostbitten. Anthony took a few photos from far away.
First Gigi had to make sure I wasn't anywhere near the electric fence
Action shot
For those of you who think that snowshoeing is not super cool and might only be for old ladies, you are SO wrong. Look at how hot this girl from the Athleta catalog looks:
This is not me
Snowshoeing burns a ton of calories and is a great way to get outside during the winter. If I don't want to gain 100 pounds in the next few months, I need to be creative with exercise and force myself to get outside every day. There are a ton of beautiful places close to here that I'm going to start exploring. It's way too easy to hole myself up inside this house, making lists and dreaming of what we're going to do in the future. I can do all of that on my snowshoes.