OK, so you just finished digging out from the
third big storm of the winter. You don't really want to read
about how wonderful it is to have so much snow.
But I'm going to tell you anyway, because if
you just sit inside the house looking out at all that snow you
are only going to get depressed.
There is no time like the present to learn to
love winter. After all, loving is always better than hating.
Hating winter is not going to make it go away.
Loving it will help to pass the time.
There is a lot of snow in the woods this
winter. Just try to step off the side of the road, or the side
of the trail and you'll sink to your waist into the soft
blanket of snow. This winter you'll need to have some
snowshoes.
I stepped off the packed trail early Thursday
morning, before the storm. Despite the two feet of fluffy white
snow that lay on top of two feet of denser, older snow, I only
sank about eight inches with each step. Easy! I plodded along
at a pretty good pace through the open stretch of trail.
Suddenly, Poof! A ruffed grouse popped out of
the deep snow just a few feet in front of me. She had been
tucked into the soft warmth of the snow to sleep through the
cold night. She didn't hear me coming until I was nearly on top
of her.
I carried on, turning into the thick of the
forest, and up a slight hill. This required more effort. It
didn't take long to get warmed up. I took off my windbreaker to
keep from getting too hot. It's a bad idea to work up a sweat
in winter.
An hour into my hike, and I will freely
confess, I didn't know exactly where I was. No, I wasn't lost.
I was on a hillside, heading generally south.
When I ran out of hill to descend, I would
come out on an open marsh, or maybe a little pond. Once I got
out of the deep forest, I would once again know my exact
location.
Part of the joy of snowshoeing is this
ability to go wherever I like. No trails required. Snowshoes
take me places I could not get to by any other means. Quiet
places, beautiful places, places where the moose and foxes also
roam freely.
I came across fox tracks here and there and
everywhere. In the forest, on the ponds, sniffing out beaver
houses, digging holes in the snow at the edge of the wetland.
The lightweight fox ran around everywhere in the snow - sinking
only about half as far as I did in the deep, soft snow.
The moose sink down all the way. Mom moose
and her baby made deep tracks in the snow. So long as it
doesn't get crusty, they don't seem to notice the deep snow. I
love coming across their tracks. I found the spot where they
had bedded down the night before. Mom and her 'little one'
slept about 30 feet apart. They each left a bathtub shaped
depression where they slept. I think this deep snow helps them
to stay warm through the night.
I spent another hour dipping into the deep
holes under the spruces, wandering around the little valleys
and over the open ridges, then dropped down the last steep hill
to the waterway. Turning north from there, I basked in the
morning sun as I wandered on home again.
If you are stuck inside, or have to drive any
sort of vehicle, the beauty and wonder of nature gets lost in
the noise of civilization. When you break through that barrier
of "civilized" living, you get close enough to the land to
discover what the "real" world is like. It truly is a wonderful
place.
Viki Mather lives by a lake near Sudbury.
