Skidding around the Learning Curve

 ♫ I'm gettin' snowshoes for Christmas!♫

Finally, the weather and our schedules coincided! Weather and work have left me ready to throttle somebody! It was definitely time for me and my man to go play outside, and it just so happens that we had some new toys to break in - snowshoes! :) 

Out of the many places we could go, we chose the Souix Charley Lake Trail. I was a little disheartened when other people had the same idea! SIGH! Oh well... Since there wasn't much snow in the parking lot, we left the snowshoes in the car. However, we had barely started up the trail when we met one of the other couples coming back out. Then we quickly caught up with the other threesome struggling in the knee-deep snow. Dan went back to the the car for the snowshoes, and now we had the trail to ourselves. That's more like it! 

I think I was still buckling up my shoes when I realized that Dan was no longer upright. Ummmm... Snowshoes aren't much good on rocks. Learning curve! No harm done (okay, a scraped shin), so we continued on our merry way. (Even if we were a bit clumsy and slow.)

Even the pine cones were having fun
leaving tracks in the snow! 

The Souix Charley Trail is one of my favorites, but we didn't have time to go very far. Just as we were thinking about turning around, we saw a sign for the Gorge Bypass Trail. Fairly certain that it would take us back to the parking lot, we couldn't resist the lure of the unknown. After a short, steep climb, we were looking back down at the river far below us. The trail meandered along at a fairly level grade for a bit, then began to turn downward. It wasn't overly steep, but it was constantly descending. At one slightly steeper spot, my feet were suddenly no longer underneath me, and I was sitting in the snow... with snow up my shirt... and down my waistband... and in my jacket. (There's that learning curve again!) The part that Dan found most amusing (since he didn't see the actual fall) was the fact that I couldn't get up! He did take pity on me and extend a hand to pull me up. 

Safely back to the car, we agreed that the snowshoes were a worthwhile purchase that would most certainly be put to use again as soon as possible. 

~ Bonus~

We spotted a few eagles on the way to the trailhead.