Snowshoeing, not cooking, with gas

I WAS going to do a post about the terrific day I had snowshoeing, and then the terrific meal I would make afterward, but the sauce was so bad (upon which the meal turned) that I wouldn't let Chris try it. So, subpar meal. The broccoli turned out well, I might do a post on that on a later date. But today, I'll just tell you about snowshoeing.

I went to Lowes Creek county park not five minutes from our house. It's such a great woodsy area, and it still blows my mind that it's so close to town. If I were living in DC, I'm not sure how far out I'd have to drive to find something comparable. I'm not sure there IS something comparable, including Rock Creek Park (much as I love that). It's a nice sized woods with a fairly big creek and mountain bike tracks twisting all throughout, great for dog walking. In the winter, it converts to a cross-country ski haven, with miles of tracks. I, however, was going snowshoeing. We've had a couple of disappointing outings, Chris and I, with the restrictions placed on where you can and can't snowshoe in area parks. You cannot snowshoe on cross country ski trails, for example, because it wrecks the grooming. Unfortunately, it seems like EVERYWHERE around here is groomed. Last weekend we drove 45 minutes to go somewhere that claimed to have snowshoe paths, but it turns out it had about a quarter mile of boring snowshoe paths and the rest was skiing.

So anyway, I didn't have high hopes for Lowes Creek Park because I knew it also emphasized skiing. Boy was I wrong. When I pulled up, most of the people getting out of their cars were strapping on shoes, not skiis. I had to cross over some ski trails at a few points, due to a bridge, but for the most part I just followed the other shoe tracks through the mountain bike paths with fun names like "Dazed" and "Sarah's Revenge." One path went through an amazing pine forest, which is pretty in the summer, but even more beautiful after the snow we had Friday. There's a massively high canopy of rows of pine trees that were planted when they made the park, and then underneath a blanket of much shorter trees that grew naturally from the pine cones. Very North Pole. The recent, very fluffy snow also made for better shoeing because my shoes quietly went "Wumph wumph" when I walked instead of crunching loudly on harder snow. I felt like Gretel, especially because by then I was both hungry and rather lost (they were out of maps). No witches, though. Another shoer passed me and I told her I hoped she wasn't following me because I didn't know where I was going. She said she didn't either, she was just winging it.

I eventually figured out where I was and made it back to the car, not before having to slide down a rather steep hill that I realized later was not an authorized path (about halfway down I looked over and saw the rather more gentle authorized path that switchbacked down the ridge. Humph). It was wonderful. It occurred to me how ridiculous it is that I had to come to the coldest place I've ever been before I learned to love winter.