Meadow Musings: Going Outside

We went out the other day and ended up on a trail that was still covered in snow.   This is an odd time of year to hike -- trails are either still snowy, or very muddy.  This one happened to be both!  We soon realized that we were not the only ones using the trail:

That is a very Alice In Wonderland question -- how is sledding like strawberries?  The answer is:  it's rare to fill up on either.  And yet, we have managed to do both things in the past year!

When it is early summer here, strawberry season shows up and lasts (and I am not joking or exaggerating in the least here) exactly eight days.  We have a friend who has about 2 acres of PYO (that's 'pick your own') strawberries.  We go and we pick as many strawberries as we can, which last year took about 2 hours and netted us 14 pounds of tiny beautiful strawberries.  We intended to make shortcake, and strawberry pasta, and all kinds of great stuff.  In the end, though, we pretty much just ate all 14 pounds straight.  It is rare to feel like you've really had plenty of strawberries, but we managed.  (Not that we were sick of them, mind you.  Just wonderfully satiated.)

This week, we decided to make good on our vow to go sledding at the Mt Prospect Ski Area.  We learned a number of things:

1) The ski tow lives!!  There is a warming hut (a yurt, por supuesto) with a woodstove and everything.  We don't know when it runs, or for how long, or what it costs, or anything except that it is hooked up to power and there is a deep groove in the snow where it tows the skiiers up the hill.

2) The view from the top is really pretty.  This isn't even the top-top, just the middle-top where we sat down and had some hot tea.  We also brought binoculars, so we were able to scope out the cows in that field over yonder.

3) You can totally satiate yourself on sledding.  I didn't think it was possible -- I've always stopped sledding for some external reason, like my clothes were soaked, or it was getting too cold, or the snow was crappy for sledding.  But sledding here was awesome -- the snow was hard, the sun was warm, and you only had to walk up 1/4 of the hillside to get a long awesome (fast!) ride back down.  The only (minor) downside was that sometimes the sled went so fast it squirted out from underneath us and left us in the snow while it rocketed down the rest of the hill.

Whee!

Spring is officially on its way.  I know this because our yard has been visited by the aforementioned Laziest Bird There Is, the mourning dove.  They left tracks.
Please note the crazy-lazy wandering path of the pair of doves.  If you go out into our yard at pretty much any point during the day, you are likely to hear that distinctive "wheep wheep wheep" sound of doves fleeing in terror.   I have read that the sound is actually their wingtips whipping through the air, but I think that is a marketing ploy designed to make us think they aren't just completely spastic.

Super X-treem Close Up:
I would also like you to notice that these tracks are, of course, the very definition of the term "pigeon-toed".

Tate objected to my term "sea cows of the lawn", arguing that there already are cow-like creatures who hang out in grass -- namely, cows.  So I submit that the doves are maybe more closely related to dugongs, the SouthEast Asian cousins of manatees, who are sometimes also known as "sea pigs" and "sea camels".  Later in the season, when there is some grass showing, picture comparisons of the doves and dugongs will surely confirm my suspicions.

One thing I love about winter is feeding the birds.  This time of year, the only birds we have are chickadees, mostly because we are too lazy to have the variety of seed-holders and suet-holders and all the other things that it takes to attract different breeds. (Unlike some people... Hi Mom! Hi Sarah!) Also, we really don't have a good place to hang birdfeeders.  The one we do have, we hang from our lilac bush.

Last week we went cross-country skiing for the first time this winter.  It was sunny and cold and awesome.  We went to the Zealand Valley, which has a network of cross-country and snowmobile trails (not the same trails, thank goodness, because snowmobile tracks are terrible to ski in).   The Flatiron trail is a ~2  mile loop (and is indeed very flat).  It spends some time winding through woods, some time wandering next to the river, and opens onto big fields (or maybe frozen-over marshland?  It's hard to tell under 4 feet of snow). 

Some of the open spaces were alot bigger than they seemed at first.  Fortunately, it was not too windy out there, even though it was only 13°F.  After our skiing, we went over to a buried picnic table and literally dug a hole down to the bench so we could sit and have some hot tea (yeah, thermos!).  My pants froze to the bench.

Today, 6 days later, it is 46°F, and raining.  What is up with that, weather?  It is hard to get a good night's sleep when the rain keeps making snow and ice fall off the roof in huge chunks all night long.  Hhmph.

Have you ever read Backpacker Magazine?  It's really great.  We got a subscription through one of those "Your airline miles are going to expire soon" things, and it's one of the only magazines I actually like enough to pay for it when our free year runs out.  Every time I read it, I feel like going outside and hiking somewhere.  (And I don't even like backpacking!  I like sleeping in my own bed.)

Their most recent issue is the 2008 Gear Guide, and they have a special section in it for "Green Gear".  But it's not like most 'Green Product' lists.  Instead of pointing you to all the fanciest bamboo-underwear and recycled-vinyl bags, they actually give you information! Backpacker has done research and compiled a report card of what exactly each 'green' company does.  FiveTen, for example, uses all kinds of scrap and recycled rubber in their shoes. Chaco buys wind credits to offset their energy use, and pays employees to bike to work.

I think it's extra-cool to know exactly what companies are doing to earn the Green label.  Not only does it allow you to support programs you particularly like (hmmm... should I buy from the company that recycles fleece, or the one that is powered by reclaimed methane*?), but it also puts companies on the spot.  If the best a supposedly-green company can come up with is "Our brochures and packaging are 50% post-consumer content", it's not very impressive compared to a company like GoLite (carbon-neutral!  Product recycling!  Alternative transport!). 

Way to go, Backpacker!  It's nice to learn more about these green companies, and decide for ourselves which ones to support.

* CowPower is a supremely great name for a methane program.

If you plan on visiting Franconia Notch State Park, you might read in every guidebook available (even "Snowshoe Hikes in the White Mountains") that the trail up to Lonesome Lake is "easy".  Internet, I am here to let you in on a secret:  the people who write guidebooks are mountain goats. 

We have now done this trail in both the summer and the winter, and let me tell you:  it is not easy.  It is far from easy.  I think the mountain goats call it "easy" because it is a smooth dirt trail in summer and has good footing.  But here is the truth:  a good portion of that trail goes about 75° straight up the side of the mountain.  It is so steep that you have to lean on trees when you stop to rest (every 37 steps, on average) so you don't fall backwards down the hill.

And!  When we got to the top, to the Lonesome Lake, the fog was so thick that it seemed like we were standing at the edge of the world.  It was a total white-out, with about 5 feet of visibility across the lake. 

On the plus side, there was alot of new snow, and the Lonesome Lake Hut (way at the top of the trail) is staffed even in the winter, so we got to meet a nice caretaker who offered us hot tea.   The hut is solar-powered, so we chatted about batteries and sunny days and down-filled slippers (the caretaker is pro, and I think he'd know). 

We have gotten a solid 18" of snow in the last 48 hours, and it's still falling.  We are buried.  We'll post a message here if we need canned goods. 

Check it, ya'll.  A big pretty flower.   I grew it myself!

The stalk is about 2 feet long, and I am concerned that at some point soon it will realize that it is absurdly top-heavy, and the whole thing will topple over in the night.

The sky really was that color this morning, and the snow really was that blinding.  "Hey," you might say, "isn't that what white balance is for?"  Hmmph, I say.  Go tell it to Ansel Adams.   

The Coppermine Trail leads to Bridalveil Falls, and the path was so well tramped that we left our snowshoes at the trailhead and did the whole thing bare-footed.  Not THAT kind of bare-footed; are you crazy?  It's January!  Bare-footed as in "just shoes", no snowshoes or crampons.  We had to cross bits of ice along the way to the top.

Please note that this picture does not depict some sort of "Leaning Tower of Aaron", but rather a "Holy Crap it's cold and hard to hold the camera straight with mittens" incident.

The Falls at the top are great, and actually easier to get to in the winter than in the summer (when the weather is warm, you have sheer slick granite to walk on instead of sticky snow).

 "Hey," you might say, "that ice looks like pee."  Well, yes, it does.  Even more so in person, in contrast to the deep-blue ice of the rest of the falls.  I assume it has to do with minerals or dirt or something in the water.  A quick Google search gives me no answers, though it does point me to a product page for "Yellow Ice Shuffleboard Wax".  I am going to go out on a limb here and make the bold assumption that these falls are made of neither shuffleboard wax, nor pee. 

The whole area is pretty wet in the summer, which results in lots and lots of icefalls in the winter.  This is apparently a destination for ice climbers.  In my world, ice is not for climbing.  For me, this area is a destination for trail mix*.

* I accidentally typed that as "trail mixz", which is maybe even better.  MIXZ in da hiz-ouse (or, more appropriately:  biz-ackpack)!  Give a shout-out to the raisins and my main man Chocolate Chipz!

Hey, remember a few weeks ago, we went to Weeks State Park?  Well, after getting 16" of snow last weekend, we thought we'd hike up to the top of Mt Prospect.  We had been waiting for a clear day to do this walk, because we had read that there were nice views from the top.  We decided to go up the (summer-only, unplowed) road to the Weeks Estate on the peak of Mt Prospect.

To use an internet-ism:  OMG.  That was the longest walk of my life.  Have you ever snowshoed through 16" of fresh powder?  It's like swimming in molasses, except cold.  The road is only 1.6 miles long, but it took us 2.5 absolutely exhausting hours to get to the top.  (Coming back down only took 45 minutes!)

We did see many great views, including these mouse tracks (each wide part is about 2 inches) :

There's nothing like trying to take pictures of tracks in the snow to remind you that you A) don't know anything about photography and B) have a really cheapo digital camera.   

The auto road winds around the mountain (apparently the old carriage road is steeper, but only .7 miles from bottom to top), which is great for views but hard on the legs.  Just below the peak, we spent about 4 years crossing a parking lot (wide open and full of snow drifts -- at least 22" deep), then finally reached the Weeks Estate.  John Weeks was a Senator, Secretary of War, and a whole bunch of other things.  He's credited with basically creating the National Forest system, and this estate was his vacation home.   There are tours available in the summer, and, nice for us, there's a generous second-floor porch (largely protected from snow) with picnic tables.  We set up, ate some hot soup, trail mix, and gazed out at the view. 

Sadly, the fire tower is also closed (and locked!  What do they think we are, ruffians?) in the winter. It's massive, and would be cool to climb up.  Ironically, if you came here in the summer, the leaves on all the trees would block most of the views. 

Going down was speedy-fast, and we even got in some good slides down a few of the steeper bits.   Then we went home and collapsed into couch-slugs, and did not get up again until morning.

Woo woo woo, snow!  At least 10" here on our lawn, and even more when you go up to one of the notches.  We  headed to Crawford Notch yesterday, to the Gibbs Falls trail.  Actually, the Gibbs Falls trail is more accurately titled "the Crawford Path, but you turn around after you get to the Falls". 

The snow was deep (18" or so in the more open areas, and 12"-14" in the woods), and we were the very first people on the trail.  Lookie here:

Man oh man, it was so pretty.  Hard walking, because breaking trail is tough in deep snow, but totally worth it!  Granted, when we finally got to Gibbs Falls, it was completely buried and we couldn't see a thing.  We could hear some water running under there, but the snow hid all the ice falls.  So we sat down on a rock (HELLO, that was cold), drank some nice hot tea, and headed back.

We didn't see any animals (and hardly any tracks, even), but there are tons of tracks all over our yard this morning, so the animals must be coming to terms with all this snowfall.  Me, too. 

We're hurtling headlong towards winter up here in New Hampshire, and our thoughts turn to winter sports.  We went on a nice snowy hike yesterday, and came upon the (abandoned) Weeks State Park ski area.  It's totally awesome -- the kind of place you would go for an afternoon of easy skiing without breaking the bank (a near impossibility in this day and age -- even the half-day lift tickets in our area run $30+ per person).

 

It's a rope tow, as all of the municipal ski hills around here were.    There are no municipal ski hills left.  The Cochran Ski Area near Burlington, VT is the closest thing, and they had to finangle the IRS into letting them turn into a non-profit ski area to survive.  

I don't know about other rope tows (as all the other local ones have been taken down), but this one is a marvel of engineering ingenuity -- the gears are standard truck rims, and everything is mounted on old telephone poles (which also have lights on them -- for night skiing?).  

Everything is rusty, but not rusted -- I was able to pull the rope along through its paces for a foot or two.  There's still power running to poles, and the slopes themselves are in great condition.  There's even a huge parking area right at the base of the short trail up to the hill. This is exactly the kind of area that needs a patron.  Or, barring that, a group of steampunk makers who will sneak in at night and fix it up.  

 

Just think of it!  All of the wheels could be cleaned up and painted, the bottom of the hill could have a great warming hut with cider and nog and doughnuts, and everyone could warm up in front of a big fire!  I would totally figure out how to ski in Victorian garb if it meant that this perfect little hill could be used again.  

(As it is, Aaron and I have some kick-ass sledding trips planned.  I will hike all the way to the top if need be.)