Snowshoe the Bear - February 6, 2010

So it has a been a long while - hoping to get back into the blogging groove. So I will skip straight from early December 2009 to early February 2010.

So this year's inaugural event was a snow shoe race up in Big Bear at the beginning of February. I have never gone snow shoeing - but figured, how hard can it be to snowshoe a 5k at 7,000 feet? This was actually the first of four events in this series called "Conquer the Bear," which I have signed up for. The other events are mountain biking, kayaking, and finishes with a trail run. No - I rarely do anything the easy way. Where's the story in that?

So when we arrived in Big Bear, the weather was perfect. It was crisp and cold, about 3-4 feet of snow on the ground, but it was dry. Then mid-morning Friday it started raining, but Kary and I took 10 minutes to try out snowshoeing for the first time. Here is Kary contemplating:

The rain eventually turned into more snow overnight. I woke up Saturday morning at 5 a.m. to snow falling steadily down.

It was pretty to watch, but eventually we had to get ready for the race. So step one was shoveling the driveway (which is a long, narrow hill - you can see it in a picture below) to get the cars out.

We then loaded up the two cars (both were Toyota Priuses) and headed out. [While my car has 4wd and would have been the better vehicle to take - I failed to bring the right type of chains - so wanted to get some from town before driving. Note to self - maybe it would be better to read the manual before you headed up to the mountains rather than after.] There were six of us: Jane, Dave, myself, Nadir, Carrie, and Kary. All but Dave were going to do the 5k. But getting there was at least half of the battle.

Obstacle number one was the plow truck: So we start driving down the snowy road, go around a bend, and as we are driving, we notice the BIG orange plow truck backing up, so we stop. But it did not. As the orange truck grew larger and larger, we honked the horn - still no stoppage. It slowly kept creeping backwards . . . Beep, Beep, Beep getting louder. As panic set in that the plow would not see us and stop, Dave and I hopped out of the car waving frantically at the guy to get him to stop. (I'm sure we looked liked numnuts as we were waiving him down like we were on a deserted island trying to signal a plane flying overhead.) He finally stopped and was quite grouchy. He told us we had to back up almost all the way to the house so he could fully plow the roads. Dave was unhappy - in part because his 10k started before our 5k, and it was now 9:20. Partly because he was concerned the snow plow would have backed up and squashed the little Prius like a bug.

So I remained outside in the snow/rain to guide the car as we backed up all the way. Turns out the snow plow driver was also annoyed that there were cars in his "turn around" area and threatened us that if we left cars there (which is often the case when it snows to avoid the hilly driveway) then we would get ticketed. Something to deal with later . . . But for now we were still trying to get to a race.

The snow plow took off - and we thought were again free to go. Leading us to . . .

Obstacle Number Two: Death's drop. So we headed out, down the street, and made it a few curves - when he had to go up a fairly steep hill, which the natives affectionately call death's drop (mainly because when you make the turn to come down the hill, you cannot see the road). The first time Jane took a run at it she did not have enough speed, made it about 70% up the hill and the tires started spinning. So we backed up and tried again - still no luck. So we decided to get out of the car. Still no luck. Seriously? We may never get there. . . So someone grabbed the salt and I grabbed the shovel from the back of the car and tried to clean up the road a bit so the car could get some traction. After a few more tries and more road work - spin, spin . . . we got some additional traction and tried to push the car to the top of the hill. We push the Hummer in boot camp up and down streets, so a little itty bitty Prius seemed easy. So another run and a push to the top a few more spins of the tires - and we finally got the first car out. Then it was time for the second Prius - but that one made it up with not too much of an issue, and just a little push to the top.

I did not take pictures (although I thought about it) - mainly because I thought it would make everyone angry - but if you want to see the hill without snow, cut and paste this URL into your browser-
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Fawnskin,+CA&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=27.423305,78.837891&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Fawnskin,+San+Bernardino,+California&ll=34.270543,-116.938463&spn=0,359.997594&z=19&layer=c&cbll=34.27048,-116.938354&panoid=dQhZol8QGdWTYaXcmShDNQ&cbp=12,182.45,,0,27.07

So it is now about 9:40, we are still miles away from the race, I have already snowed 1/2 a driveway, a street, and pushed a car (with others). I guess that's one way to warm up for an event. Dave is quite unhappy because has mere minutes to get his stuff and start. We had a few more minutes and headed to the start as well - completely bundled up:

But after being bundled up and strapped into our snow shoes, turned out then we had to wait about 20 minutes before we started. It started to get cold, standing in the driving rain and wind. But eventually we started and off we went. There were lots of people to try to get around as we started up a hill. (I'm not sure why people feel the need to put hills in everything I do - but there we were.)

So I thought the start was a short hill - followed by some rolling hills. So we turned right, headed up the street, turned left and I thought - great - hill is done. No problem. Nope, the hill kept going and going and going. We eventually hit a point where the 5k and 10k race courses spit and the 5k course finally leveled out. I looked up the hill where the 10k was going and thought (a) I'm certainly glad that for once I was not dumb enough to do that; and (b) good luck to Dave.

(Dave - actually approaching the finish)

From there it was gradual up and down hills, until there was a long downhill to the turnaround point (which I hated because I did not want to have to climb all the way back up!)

As I trudged on through the snow to the turnaround point, the weather seemed to change with every turn. Sometimes it was snowing, sometimes it was rain, sometimes it was driving sleet, and then there was the hail pelting your face. We all just smiled.

But after a while, I was just more concerned with getting to the finish line then the weather.  At some point, I knew it was all downhill to the finish - and then we were done!

(Jane towards the finish)

My time? Who knows - apparently the timing computer got wet and crashed due to the driving rain and snow. Who knew computers were not waterproof? But in light of the technical difficulties, I will go with an unofficial time of 25 minutes, which I know is a complete and absurd lie (I don't even run a 5k on pavement in that time), but sounds really good.

We waited for everyone else to finish - including Dave, who came in right around 2 hours.

The cold became unbearable, so we went inside for some "refreshments," and Jane and I then waited for our goodies for Conquering the Bear:

(Sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy, but you get the idea.) Yes - bright/ugly bibs to wear, I know you are jealous. But we also got a cool blue vest. Once home, we still had to move some cars to avoid any tickets, enjoyed some good food, a fire, and some games, as the weather continued to be rainy, ice, and sleet. Sunday we woke up to more snow:

I did some more shoveling, although there was a nasty layer of ice under everything. As I was out there I saw the snow plow guy again. He was much friendlier that morning, and I used my irresistable charm to coax him to put some extra sand on the death drop hill and explained we had two little cars to get out. I was hopeful he would help, as we had to get the cars up that hill to get out of Big Bear and back home.

So after shoveling the ice and snow for an hour or so, and packing up the cars -we were off. The snow plow driver was nice (thank you!) and did put down some extra sand for us. My car made the hill no problem - the wonders of 4-wheel drive. We got the first Prius up on the first try. The second Prius did not make it the first time, but on the second try with a push we got it up the hill. And from there it was downhill and to watch the Super Bowl.

So next segment of Conquer the Bear is not until June . . . stay tuned.