Go for a walk in a Blizzard?

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It's nearly 2 am, there's a blizzard going on outside, and I feel like taking a walk.

A co-worker is out of town for the week and left Willie, her Maltese dog, with me to take care of. Usually when she leaves Willie here, I take him out for a long walk about 3 am. Then, when she is back in town and Willie is at home, he is used to going for nightly walks and so he wakes her up in the middle of the night in hopes that she will take him outside for a long walk around town. He especially loves to walk through the city park. She just ignores him and after a few days he quits waking her up.

I took the trash out while ago and took him with me. That was the fastest I ever saw him ready to go back inside.

The nice thing about taking a walk while snowing is that it is much easier to keep track of him since he leaves a really good, clear, easy to follow trail through the snow.

Isn't it dangerous to go for a walk in a blizzard, particularly in the middle of the night? I haven't seen a blizzard for many years. I would love to see that, but I wouldn't be there for too long.

I love going for a walk in a blizzard myself! You're also lucky to have a dog to walk with. I can't keep pets where I live at the moment.

You wouldn't want to get away from the landmarks or you could get lost.

I'm currently at the office. If there are problems that I need to fix, I wouldn't be able to drive to town so I'll be here for a couple of days. I have a place to sleep here so that's not a problem.

In town, I could hardly walk more than 100 feet without running into something. And I could knock at just about any house in town and they'd let me in until I could get back.

Out at the house it wouldn't take much to get away from landmarks. If I took off on foot to my oldest brother's house a couple of hundred feet away and walked by it in the storm, I would be in real trouble fast. Without much visibility, it would be hit or miss on whether or not I would freeze to death. And having no lights outside at night would not help at all.

Sounds scary. I don't think I've ever experienced a blizzard that bad. Where I come from we have only one or two snowy days per year. So, blizzard is something that only happens once in some years. Up in the north I guess it happens many times during the winter.

Any way, I think you should just stay in for tonight.

One Sunday when I was a kid, church was canceled because of the severe snow storm we were having.

Early in the afternoon the snow had lightened up quite a bit and I was really tired of sitting around the house so I decided to go see my cousins. My cousins lived 3.5 miles away by road, but by cutting across a pasture for half a mile, I could cut the trip down to 2.5 miles. So I got my bicycle and took off. The snow was too deep to ride across the pasture so I carried it across.

When I got to the highway, it was about 8 to 12 inches deep in snow and hadn't been graded. Considering that I was going to have to come back home after going to my cousins' house, I changed my mind. By road, it was 2.5 miles home -- a half mile south, a mile west to the parsonage and the church (the only buildings along the route), a half mile north, and then a half mile east. Across the pasture, it was just half a mile west, but I didn't want to do that again.

So I took off down the road. I met one local farmer/rancher who was out checking his cattle. He offered me a ride home, but I declined. Other than him, I had the road to my self.

By the time I got to the church, I was tired and a bit cold so I went inside to rest and warm up. After about half an hour of playing the piano very badly (not enough piano lessons to do a very good job) I went back outside and rode the last mile home.

Walking in a blizzard rocks. Thumbing your nose to extreme weather is like punching nature in the face and saying you aren't going to take its sh*t anymore.

My nephew tried to go to work this morning. From his house, it is six miles on the highway to the next neighbor. He got stuck in the snow after three miles and couldn't get out. The neighbor six miles away came out for him on a tractor with a blade on it. By the time he arrived, my nephew's pickup was completely drifted in and is still there. The neighbor took my nephew home on his tractor.

He didn't make it work at all. His short six mile attempt took him five hours.

On the highway where he lives, once you pass the neighbor's house, his is the only house in a long way that is on the highway. There are one or two houses a half mile or so from the highway. Years ago, I started down that road on a Triumph 650 road bike while it was snowing to go visit someone in a town about 40 miles away. I got to thinking that if I had trouble on that road, it might be a week before someone came by and found me, so I turned around and went back to the farm and spent the next couple of hours dirt biking (snow biking?) in a dry lake bed in a few inches of fresh snow on the Triumph.

I went for a jog once in a blizzard it was pretty great.

I can only imagine what it's like. Sounds like coming from some story book. I've always lived in cities where we had only a little snow. Snow feels so special.

Being from Vermont, we get heavy snow practically every other day this time of year. Few things are better than going for a walk or a run in it, especially at night.

Loving the snow stories and the remoteness of where you live... give me more details !
I live too close to London and long for the great outdoors.
Would love to live somewhere where its gets that cold that you can't go out for a day or two ..

Stu