SOCIAL DISTANCING
It was the biggest storm so far this winter. I suppose that is not saying much because we have had zero big storms this winter, and it is now mid March. Nonetheless, this was a big storm and it was starting early Saturday morning. I usually get up and hike Saturday morning, but I just was not feeling it. Should I go out somewhere in the rain? That did not appeal to me very much. Should I go up into the snow? The temps would be very cold, and the winds were supposed to be huge, so that did not appeal to me much, either. However … thanks to you know what, my wife had nothing to do today since all the normal Saturday activities were canceled. So I wondered if she would want to go snowshoeing with me? If she agreed, it would give me some much needed motivation to get out in the wilderness and do some hiking. Guess what? She agreed!
And bonus … we could practice our social distancing as we hiked out in the wilderness. There would certainly be no one else out hiking today in the biggest snow storm of the year. We would have Bassi Falls all to ourselves. Social distancing … oh my. I don’t know about all this, but there is one thing I will say: I hate hate hate that I can’t buy the bread I like for my lunches next week because everyone has lost their minds.
Bassi Falls was where we decided to go since it was pretty easy to get to. The road is normally plowed, so I expected it to be in good shape for driving. I also expected there to be about a foot of new snow on the ground, and another foot falling from the sky. Not exactly. Firstly, the road was not plowed at all. This made the drive a little bit interesting. The road was very slick, and there was quite a bit of snow on it, especially when we came back down the mountain later. Any more and I would not have wanted to drive it. However, there was not a foot of snow on the ground, and we did not need our snowshoes whatsoever. The main reason I chose Bassi Falls in the first place was because I was pretty sure there would be a lot of snow. There was not.
I thought we could cut off some time on the hike by taking a short cut. This was a mistake, and I really hate myself for trying it. It was definitely not a short cut, and in fact it took much longer than the normal trail, and the worst thing is it took too much out of my wife. Also, stupidly, I did not load my maps properly into my GPS, so I was not entirely sure which way to go at some sections. Tara eventually decided to turn back to the car. I continued on and arrived at Bassi Falls.
Just as I got to the falls, the blizzard started. It had been pretty nice up until my arrival at the waterfall, but now the wind was howling, it was cold, and the snow was falling very heavily. (as you can see in the photo). The granite rock was also very slick (I did fall once), and it was very tricky crossing the stream to get closer to the falls. I did not spend much time here at Bassi. I just took my photos and then started hiking back. It was a great and blustery day in the Eldorado National Forest.