Skids are fun. Trips are funny. Slips can become just a little tiresome after a while. It was another one of those scene setting moments. A brief review of the coming mornings weather and the faint promise, or to be more accurate...hope, of a bright morning. Macc Forest and a trip up Shuttlingsloei was my plan. A peek out of my window in the middle of the night, and I could see stars. I confirmed the date in my mind. Sunrise. Except as I was driving out, I realised that this would just be one of those times where my best plans didn't come together.
Cloudy, grey and overcast. Further more, it was icy as an icy thing and I could barely stand up. Well trodden paths of compacted snow made the trails into an ice rink. Standing was a challenge, walking a risk, running impossible in places. There were a few runners out and it was hard not to mention the bleedin' obvious. "Morning...Slippy". No shit! Yet this was wasn't early morning banter, it was genuine concern, in case somehow they or I hadn't worked it out yet...the vision as one tip-toed past the other clutching on to a fence post in fear for their lives!
Having said all that, up there, the sun did peek through. Wow. I met a dude at the top, all cameras and tripods. He'd been there since 4.00am he said...after telling me how slippy it was. "Slippy". Yes, I know! But the views were amazing. A cloak of orange stretching over the moors as the sun battled with the clouds. Cold feet again, but dry, despite the ice giving way every third step and plunging you in to shin deep torrents of thawing stream underneath. Progress was difficult. Not so much a run. Hands and knees in places, gravity being the eventual,winner.
