Trudging through snow...

... is quite strenuous when it is 12+ inches deep. We met Patti and Dave at Lakewood and hiked for 90 minutes today. After 10 minutes, I asked, "Why aren't we using our snowshoes?"



We all had assumed the snow would have been packed down by equestrians and other hikers. Sure, we'd had 12+ inches over a 30 hour period, but that had been back on Tuesday and Wednesday. With the foot-plus already on the ground, we've had way above average in December, and we discovered we were wrong -- few had preceded us through the woods and the pristine snow, though beautiful, was so deep we had to post-hole quite a bit, at times finding the depth was well up our thighs and once up to my knees. We spotted over a dozen deer which were also post-holing, though at a far speedier pace and making it look effortless! Here's a shot Ellen took of my legs showing my high hiking boots completely in the snow and my jeans saturated up to the knee...



It WAS a great workout, followed by a nice lunch at Culver's, and then some shopping.