Today was my second winter attempt at Allen.  First the good.  The trail was very well packed by at least a dozen people Saturday, and by the end of today at least another dozen will have gone up it.

Now the bad.  I started off on this frigid day with the car reading -2 F.  On the short 1/2 mile in to Lake Jimmy, I just couldn't get my hands warm with just my glove liners.  I brought the mitten out and that helped some, but I got the hand warmers out and by the time I reached the Mt. Adams turnoff, they were feeling good.  Unfortunately, my body had other feelings.  My food routine was off this morning because the store I was going to stop at, well, I got there too early.  So, my stomach was a little queezy, but that did clear up as I hiked.  Unfortunately though, both groin muscles started to talk to me about 2 miles in.  If they're starting to hurt this early in the hike, it didn't bode well for mile 8 to 9 where all the climbing is.  

So, I hiked in to the river crossing at 4 miles, and turned around.  In the end GPS tracked 7.6 miles over 3.5 hours.. a pace that would have been what I was looking to do, but alas, the body wasn't fully healed from breaking all that trail on Hough.

Allen has now beaten me 2 times in the winter.  That means the next time I will get up it, right?