Spooner Snow Biking, Sisyphus to Valhalla

Sunday, February 27, 2022

Spooner Snow Biking, Sisyphus to Valhalla

February 2022

Posted by Doug

Mashed potato snow. You know. The kind that you're doing 200+ watts just pushing through. Then it turns uphill, with little to no track. Sisyphus. Yeah that. You feel slightly validated realizing your partners are pushing too.

Then you camp. A still, cold, quiet night. You toast each other from your individual islands in the snow with a small flask. Then when you get up at 2am to pee, you still notice how beautiful it is despite wanting to burrow back into your nest.

Dawn comes. But sunshine is still an hour or more away. You can't help but think about getting on the trail back the way you came the previous day. All the while praying it took hold of the freeze and you'll avoid the push... finally, desire to take advantage of hoped for conditions overrides the warmth of the sleeping bag. Thawing your crappy boots over the stove you actually revel in the crispness of the still shadowed morning.Your partners are engrossed in their own morning rituals to prepare themselves for what comes next.

Fully packed and ready to ride now, dressed in your action suit you wallow out of the deep snow you camped in back to yesterday's broken in track and gingerly mount up and push off into the question. It's narrow, it's steep downhill, it's...RIDEABLE!! Inwardly you're giddy with delight but the narrow track is demanding all of your attention. In the unavoidable instances that you fall of the track you instantly nose in like a shot down fighter jet. In due course you descend to a point where the skiers and snowshoers have packed out the track somewhat. You are able to widen your focus a bit and the Viking roar is welling up, unstoppable within you. "UNTIL VALHALLA!!!" bursts from your throat and you feel nearer to glory!

Yeah. All of that.