Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Pre-dawn ski

Since I had to wake up at 5:15 and get my sons to their early morning swim practice, I decided to head out for a ski on my own this morning. It was dark and a half-moon hung in the sky. I could see it between the black branches of a tree, a kind of moon-fruit, I imagined.

I felt for the tracks that Noko and I made yesterday, not being quite able to see them. This was difficult, as the wind had also blown snow in them. As I descended the slope near the river, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, and tensed, then I saw it was just my own shadow on the river bank.

This morning, it was about twenty degrees colder than my ski yesterday afternoon, and there was a slight wind. My hands got cold as I approached the oxbow, so I turned back, stopping to swing my arms to bring fresh, warm blood into my fingertips. I'm not acclimated to the cold like I usually would be at this time of year because the lack of snow has kept me inside doing workouts at the gym.

On the way back, I could find the trail more easily because it had been newly skied in, and there was the faintest of light coming from the southeast. I began to feel warmer as my internal engine kicked into a higher gear and began producing heat from the core of my body outward. I soon felt quite toasty and could enjoy looking around in the pre-dawn light.

Great way to start the day.

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