Storytime: The Leap Day of a Lifetime

Yesterday was Leap Day, the extra day in February that occurs once every four years. Having an extra day is a valuable commodity, so such a day must be used wisely.
It just so happened that this year's Leap Day fell on the final day of our off-season before track, which began this afternoon. So, of course, my friends (Chase and Sam), my dog (Sprite), and I went on one final freedom run. 

Chase, me and Sprite, and Sam

This run turned out to be one the craziest, most exciting things I've done in a long, long time. We decided to go on an old railroad track trail that starts in our town and eventually ends about 2 miles away, but we kicked it up a notch by exploring the areas next to the trail.
Our adventure started off fairly normal. The terrain was a bit crazy, but fortunately none of us got any pre-season ankle injuries. There was deer and rabbit crap everywhere, signaling that those lovely mammals are closer than one might think. As we proceeded in our off-road adventure, we came upon the first weird thing of the day: a dead deer. It was quite mutilated with its various body parts strewn about, so we guessed that someone may have dumped it there after shooting it and that some other animal had come and picked it apart further. 

Then we continued across a gravel road to the extension of this trail. My dog was being an idiot and started running on the opposite side of the fence, so Sam and Chase held the fence down while I pulled her back over to the correct side. After this, we veered off to the north side of the trail to do some exploring. The trail was on top of a very steep hill, so we were wandering about in the midst of a sort of gully. After scrambling through the brush (that Sprite had no difficulty navigating,) we came upon a frozen pond surrounded with someone’s junk. There was a variety of old glass bottles, car parts, and miscellaneous household objects intertwined with the ice. I walked across the frozen pond to the other side so that I could explore what was over there. That was when I saw a horrific site: a pile of skinned animals.
At first I was scared because I thought they were dogs (the domesticated type), but Chase reassured me that they were only coyotes. I had seen only the ones at the top of the pile, but looking closer, one could see that they were piled up all the way down the hill and partially hidden under the snow. Some had been ripped apart by other wild animals and their limbs lay scattered in the brush. Of course, Sprite thought these creatures were incredibly interesting. She may have loved the smell, but we sure didn't.

Sprite with her fellow dog friends

a lovely coyote

After that, we made our way up the steep hill to what had formerly been the railroad track and continued on the trail. We were required to cross a shallow part of a frozen creek that crossed the path, so I decided to play it safe and cross by climbing on the metal fence line that went through it. After we came back up out of the creek bottom, we again veered to the north of the trail for further exploration. It was there that we came upon a second junk pile. This one surrounded a pit instead of a pond. As we looked closer, we noticed an assortment of strange objects in it like old license plates, beer bottles, a tricycle, refrigerators, more dead deer, and even a complete cow skeleton with its bones still laid out in order.

Next, we ran back to the trail and continued down going east. However, we realized that we had not yet explored the south side of the trail, so we turned around to do that. The south side was steeper and had much thicker brush than the north side. All of the fallen trees and intertwined limbs made it quite difficult to navigate through, but somehow we all made it out with two eyes.
However, when we had gone a ways, we realized that in order to cross back over to the trail, we had to cross a large, frozen slough. My dog made it across fine ahead of us with ease, so we made our way through the cattails to the center of the slough where a metal fence ran through the ice. Chase led the way, I followed him, and Sam followed me as we held to the fence and began to carefully cross. I turned around and joked that Sam would probably be the one to fall through after Chase and I had weakened the ice.
When we had made it out to the middle of the slough, I was confident that we were perfectly safe and that the ice was perfectly strong. I let go of the fence and began to skate around a bit. It was then that I heard Chase mumble an “interesting” phrase and I knew that we were done for.
The ice began to crack and I fell in up to my thighs before making my way back to the fence. My (too stupid for her own good) dog came back over to try and “rescue” me, but she was really the only one in danger of drowning. Chase and I climbed on the fence and slowly made our way up to the shore. Somehow, Sam escaped the ice cracking, grabbed on to the fence, went back to the shore we’d come from, and took the long way around back to the trail. Smart thinking, Sam. 

When we made it back up to the top of the trail, Chase and I examined our legs and saw that they were very banged up from being smashed through the ice. My knee had already developed a horrific bruise, and my shin was displaying a nice goose egg. Of course, we felt our injuries were worth it for the thrilling time we had just had. After wringing out my socks, we continued on our way.

a super attractive shot of my bruised knee

Of course, we were on the opposite side of the crook bottom and would once again have to pass through frozen water. This time, Sam took his chance and ran across as the ice began to crack. Chase and I opted for the safer option and went across on the fence.
We went home, this time sticking to the trail, laughing all the way as our pants froze into a form of shin guards. It was truly the best run of my life to date, and I would say we ended the winter off-season well. We’re starting to plan an extreme hike in the hills near our town, so there may be even more interesting stories to come. Hopefully track season will be close to as thrilling.