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I should have stayed home where it was warm and lazy, when it came down do it. When your winter’s exercise has comprised of a few walks up the hill to work and a whole lot of typing on the keyboard, a 15KM snowshoeing outing was probably a little much.

All winter long I’ve been thinking to myself, “wow, I sure can’t wait to get out there and snowshoe again” seeing that: a. – I have snow shoed in the past and have always enjoyed it, b. – I own a full kit of shiny happy snowshoeing gear, and c. – this whole wonderful experience of being a new father has meant that my exercise has pretty much gone out the window (not that it took much to convince me to give in).

So there you have it. Me and snowshoeing were on virtual collision course, and I really thought I was going to kick snowshoeing ass when the time came. Well, yesterday the time came. Bill from work said that he had mapped out (and broken in) a trail, and I was welcome to come.

My most immediate concern was not the length of the trip, although when he said “fifteen kilometres” my first response should have been hysterical laughter and a hearty “good luck”.

No, instead I was worried about his dogs eating me.

My memory told me from a trip out to Tibbett Lake a couple of years ago when Bill arrived with his dogs to do some ice fishing that his dogs were huge, and the type of dog that’s more content to jump up on you and sniff the areas that you don’t want to be sniffed before making their decision to plunge their sharp teeth in your rump. My memory also told me that they once jumped on Wes and made him roll down a hill.

So there I was thinking about death by a sniffing dog and what a sight it must have been to see a grown man rolling down a hill after being sniffed by a dog--rather than collapsing from sheer exhaustion on a fifteen kilometre; an oversight that I don’t think I’ll fall victim to again. In any case, I agreed and said that I would meet Bill and others along the Vee Lake at 9:30 Saturday morning.

At the very least, I looked the part, and for once dressed warm enough for whatever Mother Nature was going to through my way. A quick inventory of my pre-departure wardrobe consisted of underwear, long underwear, snow pants, sweatshirt, two pairs of socks, inner jacket, out jacket, balaclava, and toque. Most pieces had Mountain Equipment Co-op stitched into them, giving me extra outdoor prestige (you never know when an otter’s going to see your moisture wicking Mountain Equipment Co-op drawers and say “dude, GREAT choice”). Top off the wardrobe with the “hard gear” – a killer North Face overnight backpack, which effectively carried my 25 pounds of camera gear, along with a thermos of Earl Gray and a McDonald’s bacon-and-egg bagel sandwich, and my modern-style snowshoes (opposed to the big wooden beasts of yesteryear) and some shiny blue retractable trekking poles, and I was certainly the picture of preparation.

We met at the trailhead, where I had my first introduction to Bill’s dogs since Tibbett. As they leapt out of Bill’s SUV and bounded along the road to where I stood in nervous anticipation, two facts hit me: first, these were not the 6-foot tall beasts I had made them out to be, but rather average sized Labs which I could easily disperse with a look in my eye that said “touch me and you’ll end up as a rug”. Second, I was unfortunately right about the sniffing. I would have dispersed of them with my evil glare, but these were smart, cunning, crafty dogs of the like I’ve certainly never encountered: they approached me from behind.

So we took off down the trail: a nice wide trail of compressed snow, the result of a kindly snowmobile having done all the hard work sometime in the days leading up to our excursion. This is going to be easy, I thought, seeing little need for my snowshoes as the snow was packed enough to support just boots – a thought that I kept to myself for fear of sounding like the expert know-it-all.

Shit, this is easier than hiking, I mused. No mosquitoes, no boggy sections. Fifteen kilometres? Hell, bring it on Billy. With trails like this we may as do twenty.

Somehow my silent musings must have floated through the cool winter air and bopped Bill on the back of the head as just as I was thinking “I could have fit another 10 pounds of camera gear in my bag”, he suddenly turned back with a bemused look and veered off the trail. Into the snow!

Well…that’s just rude. But what the heck, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to at least show these guys my snowshoeing technique: the graceful way my shoes intersected with each step without every bumping into each other; the way I would softly sink six inches in the fresh powder before making another elegant lunge forward.

As I followed him into the deeper snow about 20 steps I realized that I had about as much grace as a ballet dancer suffering from the gout. As I stumbled in the deep snow, struggling to keep enough sense of balance to prevent me from taking a nose dive into three feet of embarrassment, I also realized that where I was trekking along effortlessly not 30-seconds before, I was now gasping for breath like I had a collapsed lung. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

100 metres of no trail then turned into 200, and then 500, and then closer to a kilometre. We came across an old, abandoned prospector’s cabin – which would have been really interesting and worth writing about if I wasn’t in the early stages of death by stupidity – and then eventually came back to the trail. It was no use, I was done for. “Dave, how you making out?” the rest of the team asked me with amused concern. “Oh, great. I’m great…nothing wrong here. Nothing to see. Why are you stopped? We’re just getting going?”

Showing me that they trusted my word, they continued on without a second thought while I could feel the tears running through my brain. Dave, you’re a moron one part of my brain said, and the other part of my brain nodded its concurrence.

As we continued on, I took to stopping every ten minutes to catch my breath and stretch my hamstrings, which were starting to feel like cheese doodles. After my ten-minute rest stops gave way to five minute rest stops complete with a five minutes of internal cursing, and then finally rest stops every 10 steps, I came to my senses and realized that I was fucked.

I came panting around a corner to find Chris and Katie waiting at a junction on the trail – likely for a long time – with relieved looks on their face. Looks that said “you know, a rescue mission wasn’t really in the plans today”.

“So Dave, what do you think? How are you making out?”

“Great”, I lied, still not wanting to present myself as the pansy I was.

“Oh, good…” They looked at each other with a knowing smile, and continued “…because that was just the warm up stage. We’ve done about five-and-a-half kilometres so far, and the next stage is another ten”,

Silence.

“Dave?”

“Um, yeah. 10 kilometres, you say?

“Yep.”

“Well, I guess that’s that”, I offered. I could see the headlines now: “Out-Of-Shape Hiker Burdens Team, Requires Helicopter Rescue”.

Chris and Katie looked at each other again, and then offered “well, you know if you follow this snowmobile trail,” pointing down a long, straight, packed trail that lead away from the snowsnoeing trail, “…it will lead you right back to the trucks”.

So there is a god, and as quick as I could choke down my humble pie I was limping the two kilometres back towards the trailhead – and salvation. An hour later I rounded a bend and as the dirty silver fender of my Ford Escape came into view, I was already concocting my excuses.