Friday, December 12, 2008

Emergency Full Moon Overnighter

High pressure, clear skies, fresh snow and a full moon, time to go.
Packed up really hastily and was out the door at about 7:30 pm last night. I just wanted to get out of town and didn't care where I ended up.
within 30 seconds of leaving my house I was on the bike trail, I passed 2 people and that was it. Pretty amazing you can ride out of a "downtown" area and get into the hills with only passing two other people. I like Anchorage.

Temps were in the single digits, but keeping warm was no problem grinding away with the freshly packed snow.




The moon was so bright at times it was almost startling. I never used my headlamp once...

Up the tour trail, to Rovers Run, a nice snowy singletrack.



Over to Hillside and an hour + long push up the new trails to get to Prospect heights.
It was getting late at this point, close to midnight. So I found a good spot to trample down and got the stove going. I should have brought a book, that moon.. oh that moon...


Middle of the night cookie dough feeding kept me nice and warm until 10:00 this morning temp upon waking was 2 degrees.
Just enough time for a well balanced breakfast - one part chocolate covered espresso beans / one part butter, peanut butter, oats chocolate chips...



You can't really see it but check out the luxury - 2 pads, my 15 year old 2+lb nice and thick thermarest and a 10mm evazote foam pad. No need to rough it on an emergency overnighter!

Got rolling for the mostly down hill 2 hr ride back home...


Great to get out!

9 comments:

Karen Travels said...

So cool.

Joe said...

Yeah, the moon has been bright here in Iowa the last few nights too. I've got out for a couple great night rides and I rarely used my lights. Way to go!!

Joe in Iowa

Anonymous said...

Am I mistaken, or are those handlebar-muffs?

SingletrackM1nd said...

How much snow depth will that Pug take before you have trouble tracking a straight line?

Eric said...

its not so much snow depth as trail width, its hard to stay on narrow ski trails.
Fresh powder is easy to track straight, its staying on the packed stuff underneath it that is tricky.

Kid Riemer said...

We had a posse of 8 for our full moon overnighter here in Minneapolis. While we can't get out of Dodge and into the wilderness as quickly as you, we're fortunate to have plenty of off-road spots to ride to where no one will ever see us. Our overnighter might have been a little unhealthier than yours however as someone brought along a bottle of Absinthe. The fire was still going nicely when I made myself go to sleep at 2am. It was a rough morning getting up at 6:20 to make it the 8am dentist appt. Youch.

Overnighters, YES.
Absinthe, NO.
8am Dentist appointmens, NO.

Cheers!

William Finley said...

So it was YOU who messed up those freshly groomed tracks. ; )
I went out and skied a loop up at Hemlock Knob; the moonlight was amazing!

Tommy said...

Pugsley by night.
Very very COOL!!

Jill Homer said...

Seriously jealous of this trip. I'm thinking about an overnighter here in Juneau on Wednesday or Friday night. Expected lows around 3 above. Brrr. :-)