One Week

One week has passed since I arrived in Colorado.  Yesterday a few of us went out to look at the sites we'll be working at.  By the end I couldn't help asking what had I gotten myself into.  The hike up to the Loch was fine, the weather was great, and the view was incredible.  But right when we got there we encountered snow about 3ft high, so after post-holing (that's when you create huge holes in the snow because your feet fall through semi-melted patches) a distance we strapped on the snow shoes to explore the inner-working of the area and locate all of our plots and weather stations.  I've never been snow-shoeing before.  And in Flagstaff, it's fairly flat depending on where you are even though the altitude is comparable to Estes Park.  So I borrowed my sister's snow-shoes made for Flagstaff snow shoeing, not knowing I'd have to climbing up hill slopes at 60 degree angles and climbing down embankments just as high.  By the end I'd resolved that I would just borrow my "advisor's" snow shoes the rest of the time and I wasn't going up again until a huge portion of the snow had melted off.  I think the last time I worked this hard was when I had to climb some random mountain in a day and even then it was a one time deal.  The thought of doing this weekly and maybe even daily for a major portion of the summer is only tempered by the fact that the snow will melt, the ice will disappear, and the weather will get better for working up there.  Until then, I'm sticking to the trails that the tourists use until I'm ready to get going with the bulk of my research.  Because right now I'm pretty sore.