Sunday, November 26, 2006

Best ride of the winter (so far)

This one's gonna be hard to top.A month of sub-freezing temperatures and no new snow has frozen Portage Lake hard and smooth. Thanks to a tip from Jon and Rose at Paramount Cycles, I knew the riding conditions were good, so a few of us decided to spend Sunday riding to the face of Portage Glacier and then wandering around on the lake.

The temp was 15 below zero when we started from the parking lot. According to my cheesy little zipper-pull thermometer, it warmed up to -10, then held steady as we spent a couple of hours playing on the ice. What an amazing day. The kind that makes it hard to imagine ever living anywhere else.

Unfortunately, I was so jazzed by all the great scenery, I forgot to check the settings on my camera and all the photos at the glacier came out too dark. I'll have to see if I can brighten them up on the computer.

In the mean time, I bagged a few decent pics on the second half of the ride after Andy and Melissa had to head back to their car because of a committment later in the day. Maura and I did a little exploring among the icebergs (one with a natural tunnel where I threw down my sexy-man pose), ice falls and frost flowers.

Ice rides kicks ass.

3 comments:

Jeff Moser said...

You make me feel like such a sissy! I'm still trying to get used to temperatures in the 30's and snow "flurries".

The National Scribe said...

hello. I was just passing through some blogs and came across yours. it is pretty interesting. i ahd no idea that you could ride a bike on ice. well, i mean ride well. cool blog.

Michelle said...

Nice pose, uhh, pictures (I was distracted for a moment) ;). I never thought of heading out to Portage to ride. I think Bike Boy and I will have to change our weekend plans and head out there - I love winter!