Rain or Shine, and Where I Draw the Line at Ice
I say "rain or shine" to every new walker in the first week, and I mean it. If we cancel every time the sky looks bad, the group stops being a commitment and starts being a suggestion. Suggestions are easy to skip. That's the whole problem we're trying to solve.
So what does that actually commit you to? Rain, we walk. Cold, we walk, you just dress for it. Wind coming off the point of the mountain that makes your eyes water, we walk. The only thing that actually stops me is ice, and even then it depends what kind.
What "rain or shine" actually looks like
It's not complicated, but it does mean a little prep. See which of these you already do and which you've been skipping.
- Check the forecast the night before, not the morning of. Utah weather flips fast, but you can usually tell if it's a real system or just a gray morning that'll burn off. Dress for the worse of the two guesses.
- Layer for wet, not just cold. A rain shell over a fleece beats one heavy coat. You can peel it off halfway up if you overheat, which you will, because walking uphill in a coat rated for standing still is a bad time.
- Waterproof your feet, not just your top half. Wet socks ruin a walk faster than wet hair does. I've said this to people mid-January and watched the lightbulb go on.
- Bring a hand towel for your face if it's really coming down. Small thing. Nobody tells you this one.
None of that is complicated. It's just the difference between "I'll skip it, it's raining" and "I'll wear the shell."
Where ice comes in
Actual ice, the slick kind, the kind where you can see your own reflection in the trail, I take seriously. I'm a PT. I've spent more hours than I want to count rehabbing hips and wrists from exactly this kind of fall. That's not theoretical caution, that's Tuesday afternoon in my old clinic.
So the line I draw is this: if the trail is glazed, we shorten it, slow it way down, or move to a stretch that gets more sun and clears faster. We don't cancel. We adjust. Rain or shine still holds, ice just changes the shape of the walk.
One January morning the whole loop was solid ice, top to bottom, the kind where you could hear it crunch underfoot in a bad way, not a good way. I'd said rain or shine enough times that I felt like I had to show up even though every PT instinct in me said this was asking for a fall. Two people came. We didn't do the loop, we did a shuffle version of it, maybe forty minutes for what usually takes twenty-five. Small steps, hands out of pockets in case anyone needed to catch themselves, nobody in a hurry.
And it turned out to be one of the better mornings we've had. Nobody was worried about pace. Nobody was checking a watch. We were just three people moving carefully together because we'd said we would, and that's really what this group is for anyway. Slow is the point. That morning it was slow by necessity instead of by choice, but it worked the same way.
What to actually do when you wake up unsure
- Look at the ground, not just the sky. Rain from two days ago that refroze overnight is worse than snow falling right now. Snow you can see. Ice you can't always.
- Bring traction if you own it. The little slip-on cleats for your shoes aren't overkill up here, not with our dry air one day and a freeze-thaw cycle the next.
- Text the group, don't assume. If I'm shortening the route or moving it, I'll say so. If you don't hear from me, assume we're going as planned, dressed for it.
- Trust your own read over mine. If your driveway was a skating rink and mine wasn't, you know your own conditions better than I do. Skip it, no explanation needed. That's not the same as skipping because it's just unpleasant out.
I'll admit I'm not always great at remembering to check in with people who go quiet after a rough-weather stretch. If you skip three weeks because of ice and then feel awkward coming back, that's on me for not reaching out, not on you for missing it. Just come back. Nobody's counting.
Before next time
Go take a look at your closet and figure out whether you actually own a rain layer, or whether you've just been assuming you do. If you don't, that's your one errand before our next walk.