Archangel Road Ski

 Today is Friday and I usually hike or ski with my friend Pam on Fridays. More snow fell overnight and I even had to use my snowblower to clear my driveway. We met up at Archangel Road and actually found parking places. The fresh grooming was now covered with about 4 inches of new snow. But it made for wonderful ski conditions. I'm still struggling with my skate skis but found I was finally able to make some progress. On slightly downhill areas I could really get the right skating rhythm. But it was still a lot of work on the uphill sections. It was snowing hard the entire time and we were both getting wet. Both of our dogs were collecting huge snowballs on their feet. Bella has long hair and by the time we were back I think she had the equivalent of her own weight in snowballs alone hanging from her poor little body. We skied to the bridge and back, close to 5 miles. I stopped now and then to remove snowballs from Bella. Back at the trailhead, she couldn't jump up to climb over the snow berm to get back to the car. I found she had a gigantic pile of snow on the whole underside of her body. I had to remove that to get her back down to the car. In the car I found that she had numerous snowballs the size of baseballs hanging from her legs. I cleaned them off at the lodge then we went in the lodge for a nice lunch. They allow dogs in the restaurant and even give the dogs a treat called a pupucino, which consists of a milk bone covered in whip cream. Both dogs thoroughly enjoyed that. Pam and I enjoyed salmon burgers. I realized that I needed to buy some actual skate ski poles instead of struggling with my heavy adjustable snowshoe poles. So I stopped into Backcountry Bike and Ski shop and picked up the best ones they had. I hope they will be helpful the next time I ski. The poles are important in skate skiing because they are used to push from behind. They need to be the right length and have the right wrist straps. I'm sure that will help. I was soaked from the snowstorm so spent tonight drying things out.