Santa brought me a contemporary set of snowshoes, so I set
aside my wooden and rawhide pair and headed out today to give the new ones a
try. Contemporary aluminum tubing
and some kind of durable material that seems something similar to leather
snowshoes have their advantages, but they lack the Sgt. Preston look of my
traditional ones.
The harness is much easier to step into with only a strap
that quickly cinches the shoe tight.
The bottom of each snowshoe has two claws that provide traction and make
climbing up hills and grades very much easier. Moving into the woods is not an issue with these
snowshoes; with my wooden and rawhide snowshoes, I was concerned about snapping
a strip or the frame of the shoe itself.
I don’t know that the modern “high tech” snowshoes are as
good on deep snow. They don’t have
quite the surface area of my old traditional snowshoes, but I did not
experience any difficulty today.
Today, I took a slightly different path at the Perry Nature
Center/Arboretum. I parked in front
of the Jasper Educational Center and then walked down the hill to the large
meadow that spreads north of the building and continued out to the tree line
that borders the Big Sioux River.
There have been several light snowfalls recently, and most
tracks from others venturing out into the cold have been covered. Today was the single “warm” day
forecast for the week, and the temperature was about 20 degrees under sunny
skies with a stiff wind out of the south.
I felt compelled to get out this afternoon.
There were few traces of others walking in this area. I walked along the tree line looking
into the woods for any sign of wildlife, but I didn’t see anything, not even a
single bird. There were a few
tracks of rabbits and deer, and some faint traces of a cross-country skier, but
generally mine were the only evidence of passage through the snow.
I trudged along in the snow, congratulating myself on
getting out of the recliner to experience an hour and a half outside in the
sun. Snowshoeing is strenuous; it
is not a stroll in the sunshine.
Sometimes I tend to walk further than I might have planned, only to
realize that I have to walk back as well.
Snowshoeing along the tree line of the river offers
something different each time. The
winter landscape is constantly changing with new snow and winds. As the snow gets deeper and stays
longer, drifts are sculpted on the meadows and the woodland takes varying
looks. The winter sun and the
white snow create interesting shadowing, and all this changes daily. So, I think that a person can visit the
same few places and get enough variety over these next three months to sustain
interest.
The complete set of photos can be found at the following Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jayheath/sets/72157639362307556/