We've been hearing all week about a huge snow storm and cold snap that is supposed to hit us late this week. Temps falling from 65 on Sunday 4 days ago to 20 on Thursday. The snow storm (some are calling it a blizzard) arrives Thursday (that's today!), and Friday's high is supposed to be 10, overnight low of -7.
So I woke up this morning at 8 after this crazy work week, knowing it's going to dump snow in the afternoon and stay well under freezing all day. So I did what any rational person would do: I put on my running shoes, a stocking hat, and went for a run in the woods. It appears I may be the only rational person in the Hudson Valley, because there was nobody, and no sign of anybody, on the trail today. I started at the SW end of Canopus lake at 8:30. It was 11 degrees. Cooler than previous outings which were both about 22 degrees, but not unreasonable, thinks I. I have a set of good gloves, my stocking cap, a t shirt, a long sleeve biking jersey, long biking leggings, running shorts, a medium jacket, and a backpack with water, 2 cold sausages, and some peanut butter candy. The lake is not suitable for swimming. First, it would be instant hypothermia. Second, there's a layer of snow falling on the lake's frozen surface. So you can't swim in it even if you are immune to hypothermia.
The trail here goes along the West side of Canopus Lake, and mostly follows the higher ridges. The lake is usually visible through the trees in the winter. In summer, you probably can only get fleeting glimpses of it. I was surprised to meet a canyon of green in the middle of winter. It didn't last long, but it was cool.
In the woods, you can usually hear water before you see it. I heard this gurgling brook near the top of the ridge line, and the trail ran right across it. It was a huge spring: rocks on the trail covered it for maybe 30'of trail. There were icicles on logs spanning the water, and little islands of ice and snow on the rocks sticking up out of the stream. Gorgeous.
My minimum goal for the day was to reach a certain dog-leg in the trail near the North end of the lake. I'm doing the AT mostly solo, and mostly in little chunks. So I end up covering 1-4 miles of trail, but running/hiking 2-8 miles. Some trail segments are longer than that, though, so I have to hit them in 2 sections. This is one of those. I knew if I completed this hike to the dog leg from the South, then I could get to the dog leg from the North on a different day. I got to my goal in a little less than an hour. I was not prepared for what I'd see. It blew me away.
It looks like the Hudson River, but it's not. And it also looks foggy, but it's not. It was somewhere between 9-13 degrees for the entire hike, and a light to medium snow was falling most of the time. I had brought my backpack because I expected to take off my coat and hat and some point like I had on my first cold-weather trail run. It was not to be. 10 degrees and a slower pace is a completely different experience than 22 degrees and running. They stayed on. I kept moving after I'd reached the overlook, hoping to make my next leg shorter. I got about another mile in before I could feel that it was time to return. The forest had changed from the shorter, skinnier trees at the ridge line to taller trees, reaching up from the floor of the ravine for sunlight. It was 3.75 miles in, and I needed to get home eventually and get some other things done.
The return trip was shorter. Or it felt shorter, anyway. I tried to cover it as quickly as I could. I had done my exploring, now I just needed to clean up and finish the job, which I like to do quickly. I was also starting to get hungry (I don't eat before these early runs), and I also realized that it was really really cold. It was like biking, when I realize that I'm going to need to make time to stop, get a drink, and eat a snack before I start to bonk. This time it would be the cold that would be dangerous. Writing it this way sounds really dangerous, but it's the opposite: when you've spent a lot of time pushing your body in a physical way, you understand when it's telling you, "I'm fine now. But if you don't go toward somewhere warm, I might not be fine in a while." It was telling me "I don't have hypothermia yet. But if you don't get warmer, I will soon have hypothermia." 
I like the warnings, and I heed them. I ignored them once, on a bike ride in early Spring a few years ago. I ran completely out of water and blood sugar, and I could feel my body shutting down certain things because my legs had to keep pedaling. Although I was able to set down for half an hour and let my blood sugar return to a functional level and make it home, it was a scary experience that I did not want to repeat. So I turned around and tried to move faster home. I ran where I could, kept my hands in my pockets as I ran and walked, and soon made it back to the overlook, where I indulged in a selfie. A little more than a mile from the car, I lost the trail. I'd been following a mix of the trail markers, the obvious trail, and my own footprints (there weren't any others), and I realized that although it looked like I was on an obvious trail, I saw no footprints,and no markers. I had the lake to my left, so I knew I could get back to the car no matter what. I use MapMyRun to log these workouts, and I pulled it up to see that I was indeed off the beaten path. I backtracked about 50 yards, saw the trail markers, and I was back on my way.
I get back to the car at 10:30, about 2 hours for 7.5 miles. The rest of the day was busy - I got home, showered, went grocery shopping, bought the parts for a generator cable, spent some time cleaning the pantry, did a load of dishes, made dinner, put up some brackets for curtain rods, put away dinner, logged my pics on FaceBook, lifted weights, played a little Rock Band, printed some AT maps, and now this blog post. I should be really tired, but I'm not.
Christian and Katrina aren't feeling well tonight. I hope they feel better in the morning.
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