The Sunday hike part 2

This Sunday, in anticipation of the snowy hills, we thought we would go snowshoeing in the Vienna woods. It is a short 50 minute drive to the Vienna woods and the hike was supposed to be 2 hours up and 1 hour down, but we did not calculate our getting lost and the knee high snow into that. The snow was not the right kind for snowshoeing. It was the light and fluffy kind that is better with hiking boots. But even in hiking boots the snow is a killer. You have to lift each foot far above the snow to take one step forward, and with each step down you have to force through all the fluff in order to find solid ground, so this innocent little trip ended up taking us 4 hours.

Initially, the hike was very well marked. But once we hit a large clearing, we had no way to know where the next marking was. As it turned out, it was all the way over a hill off to the left. In the spring, summer and fall, I am sure it is very easy to find your way around, but with fresh snow, no footprints and no markings, we got ourselves good and lost within the first 7 minutes of the hike.

The Vienna woods are normally full of wildlife and we saw several animal watching posts along the way. This one looked extra strange with all the snow and ice.

Once we were deep into the woods, the whole place turned fairy-tale on us. I wanted to sit here and set up a picnic, but we had already eaten our sandwiches in the car on the way to this hike, so there was no picnic to be had.

And 3 hours into the hike, exhausted, a bit hungry and cold, we were looking forward to the mountian hut to warm up and maybe get a bowl of soup. But contrary to what the hiking book stated, the mountain hut was closed until February. So here was our consolation prize.

Ah, the cold and lonely cross. It just wouldn't be a winter hike without him. But we made it back alive. Exhausted, but alive. And this morning we were both feeling it as we creaked down the stairs on the way to work.