MegDesk

We’ve had some of the most dangerous weather outside lately.  It’s been hovering around freezing, dipping both above and below, so we have a deadly mixture of snow and rain.  Lately it’s been raining, but with temperatures dropping overnight, a lot of places end up extremely icy and slick.

Thankfully, in its unending quest for employee safety, our company provided everyone with ice grips for our shoes late last year.  I had yet to use mine, but after a couple of days sliding through the parking lot, I decided to toss them in my purse.

I’m so glad I did, because last night we faced the terrifying prospect of walking down through the ravine near work to get to our friends’ place.  This path is normally wet when it rains, since water flows down the paved hillside path to the stream at the bottom, but with the freezing temperatures, the hill had pretty much turned into an icicle.  Like a huge piece of flowstone in a cave, the entire path was coated with a 6-inch thick layer of solid ice.  And to make conditions worse, the new rain was flowing down the hill right over the top of the ice sheet.

We could have found an alternate route, but we’ve never gone any other way, and with it cold and dark and rainy, I wasn’t really in the mood to look for a “long way” to get there.  So, I got out my handy ice grips and fastened them onto my boots.

My first step out onto the ice proved that I hadn’t quite gotten the ice grips into the right position with my heeled boots, and my feet slid out from under me.  Once I landed on my backside and my jeans soaked through with cold rainwater, I began sliding down the hill and made it about 3 or 4 meters before finally coming to a stop.  I got up an repositioned the faulty ice grip and carefully stepped back onto the ice.

It was amazing!  The little metal bits cut into the ice, and we found that we could actually walk right down the middle of the ice sheet.  And then back up the hill on the other side!

It kind of felt a little like scuba diving for the first time.  We were defying nature!  Just as we were never meant to breathe underwater, we were not meant to walk on glare ice without making a fool of ourselves!  But we conquered the physics and made it safely back to the clear sidewalk!

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