Sporadic Clearing

Arlington plowed the trail this winter and Lexington didn't. The trail is largely clear and dry in Arlington, save for a little debris and runoff in spots. Even where the snow has melted in Lexington there's the whole winter's wrack, scattered or in heaps, strewn along the trail.

Traveling west from Hurd Field yesterday I skirted around the messes, struggled through a couple of sandy crossings, and turned back behind Lexington Toyota where snow and ice covered the trail completely. In the opposite direction was the opposite story: all clear down to Mill Street. Daytime melting and torrential rain will clear much of Lexington's snow in the next few days, then there's just the debris to sweep away.

Looking west behind Lexington Toyota

Yesterday: 4.7 miles. This year: 12.2 miles.

Sunny and warm - for January

The trail is clear of snow and ice all through Arlington, from Alewife Station in the east to Mal's garage in the west. There's a little meltwater, a few tons of sand, plenty of sticks and leaves. The ice is solid from Mal's on out.

Milepost 0 at Alewife

Alewives on Milepost 0

Leaves near Spy Pond Field

The clear trail ends at Mal's

Today: 7.5 miles. This year: 7.5 miles.

Welcome to 2008

What's this about? Read The Beginning.

I missed my goal in 2007, so I'm trying once more to skate the distance from Arlington, MA to Stillwater, OK (1636.5 miles over the road, 1453.1 miles on a great circle) before next winter closes the trail again. Arlington's plowing of the trail might lead to an early start this year and a better chance at meeting my goal. Once again, I'm tracking my progress on a Google spreadsheet. Terminally geeky, I know.

If you're just here to enjoy the view, you can skip reading all the old postings and go straight to the photo album. But it's no substitute for hitting the trail yourself.

Google Street View

Google Maps Street View covers much of the Boston area now, including nearly all of Arlington and much of Lexington. A Google LatLong Blog post explains how to embed street views in other web pages, so here we go. The location is the Bow Street crossing of the bikeway in East Lexington.

View Larger Map

Plowing + Melting = Clearing, Pretty Much

Some natural melting coupled with Arlington's plowing has made the trail much clearer. In Arlington Heights the trail averages nearly two-thirds of its full width, with some icy spots. A December 16th news item on Clear the Trail mentions the trail being plowed past the Arlington line to Bow Street in Lexington. That must have been for one storm only, as the latest plowing stops abruptly behind Mal's. From there to Bow Street it's solid ice.

Looking toward Bow Street from Drake Road

I Took Pictures

I recently discovered that all the pictures I uploaded for this blog were accumulating into a Picasa web album. Now that I know, I've made the album public, captioned the photos, and made the whole mess searchable through Google Images. I'd link the photos back to their blog entries if I could, but Picasa Web Album captions seem to be straight text.

Then What Happened?

It got cold. It rained. I was tired. I was busy. My mother was visiting. I had stuff to do at the office. The dog ate my homework. Bottom line, I stopped skating in late October and now it's too late.

Arlington is plowing the trail this year as an experiment and it's working about as well as I expected, which is very poorly. Many entrances are blocked by snow and runoff forms patches of black ice on the trail. Plowing prevents skiing or snowshoeing on the path, but doesn't make it walkable.

At Hurd Field, Arlington

Behind Trader Joe's, ArlingtonCheck out the frozen footprints.

This year: 1439.5 miles. The End.