I had been wanting to do the Grove Creek -> Battle Creek loop in the snow for a while. With my sister-in-law (also a new trail-runner) in town and wanting to do a run, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. I asked around and knew that the climb between the two drainage – up and over Chris Flats – might be a bit sloppy. I figured we could tough out a mile of post-holing though. No problem.

Grove Creek was pretty good up to the bridge, and even a bit beyond. Once we broke out of the trees, however, the tracks lessened and post-holing began. Up to the spring, up to Chris Flats, and most of the way down into Battle Creek it was a sloppy mess. If we had hit it early in the morning before the sun warmed up the surface, we might had stayed on top more. Perhaps not though – it was soft pretty far down. In any case, it was an adventure. Rachael may never forgive me, but she did get some good pictures out of it!

GPS data got messed up on the descent into Battle Creek. There is no way we were moving that fast!