We had more snow here in the PDX metro area this week. That meant chaos, short work days and of course play time! City Hall was closed early on Wednesday and open late on Thursday. It took some of my friends and coworkers hours to travel distances as short as 5 miles. Makes me glad I take MAX on these days. It is also more proof that we’re just not setup around here to deal with even minor snowfalls. Again, I think it is more amusing than anything. I’m really not going to complain with spending more time with Mia instead of being at work either.
With cold temps sticking around, the snow stuck around too. I took the opportunity to head up to Stub Stewart to get in a little Farley fun!
There was about 2-3″ of snow on the ground with crunchy ice left over from last week’s snow storm. Some of the steeper sections of trail were super slick underneath all the powder and I was forced to walk here and there because I kept spinning out. On Skidder Row and Unfit Settlement I was creating the only tire tracks. Some one had been hiking out there though, plus there were a ton of deer tracks all day too.
There were some older tire tracks along Shoofly, probably from Friday or Saturday I would guess. I didn’t see anyone else out there today.
Normally I’d have to consider driving out to either Mt. Hood or St. Helens areas to get in some snowy fat biking. Getting the opportunity to drive just 25 minutes to Stub and bike in the snow was too good to pass up. I might get conditions like this once every other year.
I’ll probably be riding in the wet and mud by next weekend. We are moving back into more typical 40’s and rain over the next few days. So again, I’ll enjoy these conditions while I can get them. Next snow ride will probably have to be out towards Frog Lake or something like that.
That’s about it for now.
-Pete
ON & OFF RHODES 
Wish I had the opportunity to get to somewhere “nice” with this snow. I worked the last few days, so my only expedition into “pure snow” was Wednesday night. I rode around a little bit today: mostly passable, though still some sketchy spots.
One thing to note about Stub is that even its modest elevation means there is more frequent snow up there in the middle of winter, when all we see is rain in the valleys. Out of the three New Years trips I did there, two of them had snow up there, when there was nothing in town (basically it seems like the trestle is the “snow line”, though that thing is always frosty!)
Ooh, skidder row and unfit settlement were some of the places I ran when we were there camping, and I had a similar experience (of no other tracks save deer, rabbit, and coyote:)
Super psyched you got out there in more snow!! 🙂