Cold-Morning Walking and Why I Prefer It
We've talked about the July walk that taught me about water. This lesson is about the other end of the thermometer.
I like the cold mornings better. You don't have to agree.
There's something about heading up the canyon at 6:15 with your breath showing in front of you that a July walk doesn't have. The trail is quieter. The dry air that works against you in the heat works for you in the cold, because there's no mugginess sitting on your chest. And the light comes in low and sideways through the canyon walls in a way it just doesn't at noon. I'm not going to oversell it. It's a preference. But it's mine, and I've earned it over enough mornings that I trust it.
Here's the practical part, because cold mornings will hurt you if you treat them like warm ones with a jacket added on.
Dress in layers you can shed
The mistake people make is dressing for how cold it is standing in the driveway. You won't be standing still. Ten minutes into a climb you're generating heat, and if you left the house in your warmest coat you'll be sweating through it by the switchbacks. I go out in a base layer, a light insulating layer, and a shell I can tie around my waist. If I'm not stopping to adjust something in the first fifteen minutes, I dressed it wrong.
Your extremities go first
Hands, ears, feet. A hat that covers your ears and a pair of light gloves solve two of those cheap. The feet are where I still see people get it wrong, and I'll say the thing I always say: cotton socks are a mistake, wool is worth the money, and I'm not moved on this. Wet cotton against skin at 34 degrees is miserable in a way that stays with you the whole walk.
The ground is different in the cold
Frost and thin ice show up in shaded spots and near the creek crossings even when the rest of the trail looks dry. That's not a place to trust your footing just because it looks like packed dirt. If a patch looks damp and it's below freezing, assume it's slicker than it looks and slow down before you're on it, not after.
Warm up before you climb
At 4,600 feet, cold air is thinner air and thinner air is already asking something of your lungs. Give your body a few hundred yards of easy walking before you hit the grade. I don't stretch well, I've said that before, but I do walk the first stretch slower on cold mornings on purpose. It matters more than people think.
Now the story, because it belongs here.
The first real hill I took up that canyon, I stopped three times in the first half mile. I told myself the hill wasn't actually that steep, that I'd built it up in my head walking to the trailhead. I hadn't built anything. It was steep, plain and simple, and I was out of shape, plain and simple. Both of those got better with time, but that first morning I stood there with my hands on my knees convinced there was some trick I was missing. There wasn't. There's no trick. There's just doing it again the next week, a little less winded, and the week after that, a little less than that.
I bring that up here because cold mornings expose you the same way that first hill did. You find out fast whether you dressed right, whether your lungs are ready for thin cold air on a grade, whether you've been skipping the warm-up walk you know you should do. The cold doesn't forgive guesswork the way a mild June morning might. It just tells you the truth early.
Steady beats fast, and that goes double when it's cold. Don't try to outrun the chill by pushing your pace hard right out of the gate. You'll get warm eventually just by moving. Let it happen at a pace you can hold, not one you're gritting your teeth through.
One more plain fact: cold air dries you out faster than you'd expect, because you don't feel thirsty the way you do in July heat. Bring water anyway. The lesson from that hot walk applies here too, just quieter.
Before next time
If your closet doesn't have a base layer and something warm for your ears, that's worth fixing before your next cold walk, not during it.