Several years ago, my sister, Teresa, gave us ice cleats for Christmas presents. At the time, I didn't think it was very practical, because there was no way I was going to go out hiking when St Louis was covered in ice. But since the weather has been glorious this week, we decided to celebrate Fat Tuesday with a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. Since all the trails were covered in 3 feet of snow, it was a good thing we had those cleats.
The tricky part about ice cleats is getting them on over your boots. They're basically a pair of springs connected by a large stretchy rubber band. But you can see by this picture that they are less than half the size of your boot. Poor Bruce had a devil of a time stretching them over his size 11 feet.
On Wednesday, we switched to snowshoes. The warm weather had melted a lot of the snow in the park, but there was still quite a bit of snow on Bear Lake - literally on the surface. It was a bit nerve-wracking walking on the lake knowing that just beneath the snow was a sheet of ice between you and the water. I'd always imagined snowshoeing through a snow-covered forest, but the trails were much too steep and rocky for me. I had enough trouble trying to walk with my feet far enough apart that I didn't step on the opposite shoe (doing that makes you lose your balance and face-plant in the snow - thank goodness I had my hiking poles). In summary, I loved hiking in snow with the ice cleats, but I think I'll save snowshoeing for the flat open spaces around our neighborhood.
