From The Heights. #43 Snowshoe Trails.

Good morning to all of you on this cloudy, chilly Saturday morning! However, it is winter, so it makes sense that the days will be chilly from now on. Although our winter forecast is not looking too bad this year. At least the first half of winter anyway. But we could be in for another of those winters with not much snow, kind of like we had about 3 years ago.

That part is nice for winter, but not good for next year because it will mean a dry start to summer. And that means lots of forest fires. Now, when I say “not much snow”, we can still get 3 feet (about one meter). But that is not much for us. Normal is 6 and a half feet (about 2 meters) of snow. A couple winters ago we had just over 10 feet (about 3 meters) of snow. That was a lot. Oh well.

For now it is nice. I must admit, it is hard to get myself motivated to go out walking around here. I do it, but I have to really push myself. I do miss walking down to the river. It would be beautiful down there right now. Years ago, and I stress this was years ago, not recently, I used to do a lot of snowshoeing. I enjoyed that, especially when the snow was very deep.

One year I was snowshoeing in a new area and I carried a 6 foot long pole with me to measure the snow depth as I walked along. One place I stopped and pushed the pole into the snow and it disappeared in the snow, plus about 6 inches (15cm) on top of it. That was quite deep. I continued walking along and went uphill to the top of a ridge.

The sun was shining through the pines and it looked so beautiful. The snow was not so deep either, about 3 feet. It was so amazingly quiet, there was no wind, not a sound of anything could be heard. Except me breathing in that cold air. It was -20F (-29C), so not too bad for a January day. There were a lot of deer tracks in the snow, but nothing too recent.

I continued to walk and went down the other side of the ridge. It was easy walking, though next to me was quite a steep drop. I stayed away from that as much as possible though. Then for some reason my left foot slipped and I went over the edge! But I managed to grab a small tree stump right at the top and stopped myself from falling.

Path to the river, above pictures were alongside the path.

But now I was hanging over the edge, not a good spot really. I could not pull myself up because of the snowshoes and I could not take them off. Only thing to do was let go, which I did. Down I went and landed in some nice, soft, deep, snow. There I was, my feet higher than my head, which was somewhat buried in that snow. That was fun trying to get up from that position.

The snow was just too soft. But I got up and with no injuries that I could feel. That fall was about 30 feet (about 9 or 10 meters). So, I kept walking and reached where I wanted to go, a small lake. I had brought some coffee and sandwiches along which I ate at that point. I had been sitting on a rock and when I got up to leave I realized my left hip was paining quite a bit, though it was fine while sitting.

Further along the path.

Walking back was a bit harder. That hip bothered me more and more as I walked. All this time and the only birds I saw were two ravens. And they were circling overhead like 2 vultures. Finally I was on top of that ridge again. I had to take a different way up, it was a little longer, but safer.

At the top I noticed some new tracks in the snow, on top of my snowshoe tracks yet. Well, guess it is time to stop for now, but I will continue this tomorrow so you do not have to wait a whole week. Have a great weekend everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.