I have had this job for almost 10 years, so that's a lot of days of going to work. I have gone by bike, car, bus, and even rollerblades. But today, I decided to snowshoe to work, while it was actively sleeting, on a work holiday, using homemade snowshoes.

The first half of the trek was fairly uneventful. I've never snowshoed before, so it took a bit of getting used to walking with my knees slightly bend and feet far apart. The ice on the trees was pretty, but I mostly had to look at my feet the whole time to avoid tripping. It was peaceful, with the sound of the sleet on my hood, and very few other people out and about. Unlike normal walking, each step felt like a deliberate action. Step followed step, and it felt like I was part of the passage of time, like sand falling through an hourglass.

At about the halfway point, my snowshoes started to lose structural integrity, but I was able to jury-rig a solution by changing the way that they were tied onto my boots. Unfortunately, the sleet was turning to rain, and the snow started turning into slush. You will not be surprised to hear that snowshoes are very ineffective on slush. Luckily, my office wasn't too much further. Total transit time was about 2.5 hours.