If you read the title of this post you might be thinking…wait what? But this post is going to be a story of a winter hike my husband and I went on where we were completely unprepared.
I recently found out that one of the first trails I ever hiked in Colorado Springs, Seven Bridges, connects to multiple other trails one of which is called Loud’s Cabin. As the name suggests the trail ends at old remains of what was once a cabin. I had never been up that far, the pictures looked pretty cool, and I figured it had been warm all week there wouldn’t be any snow (wrong). Eric graciously agreed to go with me.
Okay so something to remember about winter hiking- snow gets pounded down by people walking on it, melts, refreezes, and turns into ice. Also shade makes it harder for snow to melt. These were all things we didn’t even think about before setting out on Saturday morning. I had no micro spikes or poles. Eric didn’t even have hiking boots, he just had his old sneakers with barely any traction left on them. Neither of us had gloves. We were off to a great start.
The trail wasn’t too bad at first, but as soon as there was any incline we began to notice the ice. This is a very popular trail, which meant a lot of people had been there in the past week packing down the snow. So…now there was lots of ice.
I’ve never thought of Seven Bridges as a difficult trail, but all of a sudden it was treacherous. We were both slipping and sliding all over the place. Both of us took pretty hard falls during the hike, although thankfully neither of us got hurt. The dogs of course had a blast. Apparently having four legs instead of two makes navigating ice way easier.
We ended up not being able to finish the trail. We just ran into too much ice. It was a beautiful hike though. Seeing all the snow and ice around the various streams and bridges was very special. Even though we were unprepared we still ended up having fun. Its not often Eric will come hiking with me. The dogs had fun. And we actually got to adventure in our new car (more on that later).
Anyway- the moral of the story is if you’re hiking in the winter bring traction (and gloves) even if you think you won’t need them.
