Sunday, February 2, 2014

Penny Pack 2014



It was a tough week at work where I spent way too much time getting almost nothing done. So I was glad to see that the weather warmed up enough to be able to get out for a ride. Trying to ride during the winter months means toughing it out in the cold, riding trails or spending time on an indoor trainer.

Yet the winter also brings some unique opportunities to see a different side of the outdoors. Although winter can be a stark and barren it has its own special beauty especially after a snow fall.  The past couple of weeks brought a few significant snow storms and although the roads had cleared enough to ride on them I wanted a more scenic ride in the snow so I went to Pennypack park.

Pennypack park is in north east Philadelphia and has a beautiful paved trail along the Pennypack creek. This is not much to this park there is the creek, a few trails, a couple of parking lots, and small nature center that's it. But the park really doesn't need anything else. Pennypack creek and the surrounding woods have a simple timeless beauty. Although Pennypack is a nice place to ride in any season my favorite time to ride here is in the winter.

Because they actually plow the paved trail when it snows this is one of the few places you can easily ride when there is a lot of snow on the ground. I rode here last winter after a snow storm and remember how cool it was riding through the snow but this year was even better. Because of the single digit weather we had this past week parts of the creek were still frozen over. The contrast between the frozen creek, flowing water and snow pack landscape created one of most scenic rides I have done in a while. It was the perfect way to recover from a frustrating week.




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