A Wonderful Walk in Wintery Woods

Trip Date: February 22, 2015

Trip Location: Old Town, Maine

Trip Type: Snowshoeing

Trip Difficulty: 1.3

Snowshoes

Sunday was a beautiful day for snowshoeing in the Hirundo Wildlife Refuge. Last night’s snow sparkled on the undisturbed trail. Our little group was the first to mark the untouched winter landscape. The white drifts were fluffy and deep, like plowing through powdered sugar.

Unfortunately we saw no real live wildlife at the refuge, but we did see many tracks. Fun fact: chipmunk tracks are incredibly cute strings of dots from tree to tree.

untouched trail

The untouched trail leading off into the majestic distance.

 

For a sense of snow….

Hirundo sign

Here we see our fearless trip leader surveying the plan of attack into the depths of the snow-bound forest while the troops stand idle in the background.

Gregory with map

The snow was so pretty, still sticking to all the branches.

snow on branches

We discovered a delightful shelter about a mile down the trail and stopped for a quick bite to eat. It was quite cozy. Much fun was had!

in cabin 1 in cabin 2

Farther on we came to the overlook point. I didn’t even take a picture because it was so underwhelming. A circle around a log that is two feet higher in elevation than the rest of the trail is not an overlook in my opinion. Whoopee!

Lunch was made all the better by having Nutella to put on our oreos. It almost made us forget how cold our butts were sitting in the snow.

Sophie in the snow

 

We also found a sign that said YOU ARE HERE tacked to a tree. And in fact that’s exactly where we were. How did it know? [insert philosophical thought here] This is also happens to be an excellent picture of everyone on the trip.

IMG_0295

All in all it was a fabulous adventure into the wilds of snowy Maine. And what a day for it too! It was almost above freezing as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds.

We Laugh in the Face of Wind

It may be cold and windy, and we may have had to postpone to next Sunday the planned trip to the Hirundo Wildlife Refuge in Old Town, but some of us still wanted to be outside. So Sunday morning, at 11 AM, Anna, Lydia, and Gregory strapped snowshoes to our feet and headed into the Arboretum.

We snowshoed over hills and through valleys. The wind alternately blew in our faces and didn’t blow at all. We took main trails, side trails, dead-end trails, and loop trails. We spotted familiar landmarks and went through totally new areas. But despite everything the weather could throw at us, we still had an amazing time.

Sadly, no pictures were taken so we can’t liven up the blog with those, but this is what the conditions were like:

Picture 2

Picture 1

 

Trail Difficulty: 1.2

Weather Difficulty: 3.7