Blog » January 2009

Last week we had cause to be in Vermont, so we went cross-country skiing at Osmore Pond.  According to trails.com, Osmore Pond is a "great" snowshoe and cross-country trail.  It is located in Groton Forest State Park, so we parked in a plowed campground and wandered through the campground roads until we hit the pond.

It was a beautiful day and the snow was awesome.  The trail, however, was quite possibly the worst cross-country trail we have ever been on.  It is a brilliant snowshoe trail, but it was incredibly twisty-turvey and also had a zillion little hillocks, both of which are hard to deal with when you've strapped 6-foot-long boards to your feet.  By the time we realized that it was a terrible trail, we were about halfway round the loop and so we were doomed to finish it.  I think we'll go back on snowshoes at some point, or on skis to wander around all the camp roads. 

In the meantime, webmeadow is closing for the next two weeks as we go to PANAMA!  We are super excited to see some sun and warmth and birds and fishes.  And if a baby monkey somehow manages to find its way home with us... well, I won't be complaining.

(And just to prove that travelling is always an adventure, the airline just called us and moved our flight so early tomorrow morning that we have to leave tonight, instead of mid-day tomorrow.  Sweet.)

Our first hike of 2009 was up to Lonesome Lake. If you have been reading this blog as long as I have, then you may recall that last year's Lonesome Lake hike was absolutely exhausting, on account of having 18" of fresh snow to slog through. This year, however, we actually ditched the snowshoes about 1/4 of the way up because the trail was so well packed. It is a much easier hike without snowshoes (though I still contend that it is not the easy-peasy beginner hike that all the books make it out to be).

It was a beautiful day, cold and clear, so at the top we had a lovely view across the lake. You can't really tell from this photo, but by the time you get to the lake, you're on top of a mountain. So the cloud-covered peak in the background (Mt. Lafayette) is extra-tall. And being at a lake on top of a mountain is pretty cool.

Once again, the AT hut was open with a caretaker (who was in the process of making some sort of baked good while we munched on our snacks). It's pretty fun to have a mid-walk rest inside a nice warm-ish building, listening to NPR. From the radio, we learned that we were going to have a dismal winter storm later that day, so it was a good thing we chose to hike in the morning.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead, the ducks have come to terms with winter. If it is really cold, they stay indoors, otherwise they spend time hanging out on the snow. If it is actively snowing but not too windy/cold, then they camp out under the chicken tree (so named because, though you can't see it in this picture, those branches are all full of chickens). The geese, however, have not come to terms with winter. They don't understand, they don't like it, and they'll thank you not to mention it.