Snowshoe Outing (Minus the Shoes)

Yesterday, with all the snow that fell (@ 5"), I wanted to go cross-country skiing. It would have been my first outing of the winter. But the snow was wet and heavy, which would make the going difficult on my waxless skis. So late in the afternoon, I took a walk around the U-M's Matthei Botanical Gardens trails.

I was the only one out, and maybe one person at most had been out before me that day, to judge from the bootprints. One of the most beautiful walks I've taken in some time. Snow clung to the trees like a thick wrapping of cotton. The damp snow fell in clots from tree limbs due to sheer weight. The trees along Fleming creek dropped chunks that dimpled the surface like rising fish. During winter, fly fishermen refer to the "snowflake hatch," which is a wry way of saying that it's too cold for any insects to emerge. But along the creek today, you might have believed that fish were actually rising to the snow.

Where the trail passes behind the Huron Valley animal shelter, it skirts a grove of tall spruces whose upper limbs appear amost knitted together. The canopy they make blocks out a lot of light, but also a lot of snow, leading animals to take shelter there in the winter because it's easier for them to move about and forage. I jumped a doe on first approaching the grove, and saw it several more times down the trail when it stopped in clearings to watch me (the Matthei gardens have some of the tamest deer I've ever encountered). I stopped when it did and gazed back, trying to keep both mind and body still. I wanted the experience of it to be as immediate, as unscreened, as possible. The presence of an interesting animal often provides an unexpected but thorough wipe of the brain, which you may prolong sometimes by ignoring your inner commentator for a bit. The point isn't to be empty or inert, but to let a particular moment, and all it contains, have as much room in your mind as it can. Such experiences are usually short lived, but memories of them don't slip away easily.

I don't know exactly how long the loop I followed was, but after about less than an hour of trudging through the snow, I was getting weary. Sinking in with every step and lifting my boots with a heavy plate of snow on the sole, I thought it was a perfect snowshoe day, or would have been if I owned a pair. Normally when I ski or hike there, I venture along a couple of the looped trails, but one felt like enough yesterday. Especially with a driveway waiting to be shoveled.

That walk was the first time this winter 've really felt I was taking part in the season, instead of watching it happen through the windows of my car or study. Paying the gas bill drives the point home too, of course, but not as agreeably.


Tags: Winter; Outdoors