Snowshoeing in the Sawtooths

I have talked with different friends for a few years now about wanting to try snowshoeing, but never actually tried it out until last weekend.  I was super excited when Dave asked if I wanted to join him and his friend Jeremy for a day of snowshoeing in the Sawtooths.  I was a bit nervous, too... worried that it would be really hard and I might not be able to keep up.  It didn't end up being as difficult as I expected, although I never was the one to cut the trail!  It was definitely a good workout though and I was glad the guys didn't seem to care too much that I slowed us down a bit (except for the fact they didn't get to hike to the top of the mountain!).  The worst part was my hip flexers burned!  Even though I'm working out several times a week, I don't think I really have any exercise that works my hip flexers like snowshoeing did :-)

It was a gorgeous day... I started out with a base layer, long-sleeved shirt, thermal, coat, stocking cap, mittens, and hand warmers.  By the time we reached our first mile, I had taken off the thermal, coat, stocking cap, and mittens.  Dave was nice to help carry the extra clothing that wouldn't fit in my camelback!

We had to go a little out of our way at the beginning because of this stream... we weren't too excited about getting our feet wet so we found a bridge to cross.  Then we were off into the trees.  We did about 10 miles all together (I think), including walking on a couple frozen lakes - that was cool!  The scenery was beautiful.  It was so quiet out there too - we didn't anyone else our entire journey.  We finished off the day at Kirkham Hot Springs, which felt oh-so-good after a day of snowshoeing.