Originally Posted by Tundra_Man

No problem on the 1 mile stretch of road I take to get to the MUP. When I arrived at the MUP I saw that it too had been plowed, so I followed the path on my usual route to work. Unfortunately, a 1/2 mile down the trail I came around a corner and discovered that they hadn't yet plowed the entire MUP. I didn't know how long the unplowed section would last, so I decided to just suck it up and ride on.

Turns out there was about 2 1/2 miles of unplowed MUP. By the time I realized what kind of ride I was in for, I was committed and was going to half to back-track a long way to take a different route. So I just pressed on.

The first half of the unplowed section had been heavily traveled by foot and bike traffic, leading to the aforementioned rutted ice. A few spots were so rough and rutted that I just couldn't maintain enough speed to ride through it, so I had to walk. The second half, however, was pretty much unmolested powdery snow which meant it was rideable but due to the depth I had to use a very low gear and couldn't maintain much more than 5 mph. Most of it was in the 7" depth range, but some of the drifts I broke through easily were 12" or more. A few spots where I'd only see my feet pop out at the top of the pedal stroke.

Well, it took a long time but I made it. Wound up getting a much greater workout and a lot sweatier than I'd expected. But my commuting streak stays alive at 203.