A Fat Ride Before Thaw

My fatbike makes winter fun.  With several 40 degree plus days in the forecast, I felt the need to get some snow time in.  Nothing special, just a ride along the Minnesota River Bottom.

An Adventure?

By nature an adventure entails risk and the possibility of a misadventure.  Regardless we drove North East of Park Rapids to the Paul Bunyan State Forest despite a dangerously cold  forecast.  Below is a screen shot of the actual temps.

We parked the car, donned our snowshoes and did our final staging before walking into the forest.

 

 The bright setting sun made each bare tree cast long shadows in the deep sugary snow.  Only animals had preceded us on this trial for some time.  We worked hard breaking a path.  

 Jared used his pulk sled to haul his gear and my bulky -40 sleeping bag.  His large snowshoes and trailing wake made him easy to follow. 

 

I took my turn leading too.  My smaller snowshoes and pack made my steps plunge a little deeper. 

Finding a spot  somewhat out of the wind we began to dig in  and set up camp. 

 With the extreme cold and with darkness coming we decided to skip making a hot meal.  I munched cheese curds, a granola bar and a few fun sized candy bars for supper.  I looked forward to snuggling in my bag and watching "No Reservations" and "Top Gear" on my phone, but dozed off.  I woke up about 30 minutes later to twigs snapping as something walked through the snow about five feet from my head.  I'd guess a deer, but the snow didn't allow distinguishing tracks to form.

 About an hour later the cold really settled in.  We made the call to pack up and head in for the night.  This, however, never felt like failure.  It was the right decision on such a cold night.  We had a great car ride,  snowshoed in an amazing forest and spent time in the woods with the animals.  Once out of the woods we drove to our cousin's cabin, made a late night pizza and slept well.  Yes, our adventure turned into a misadventure, but that doesn't mean it wasn't well worth doing.