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Hiking in the snow has its own challenges, rewards

Finally, we have winter hiking conditions. After a long weekend of cross country skiing on white stuff from our first significant snowfall of the season, more snow greeted us for our walks this week.

I have said it before and I will say it again: Winter is the best season for hiking. No bugs, no heat, no leaves to obstruct the view of terrain and any snow accents the scenery and provides animal tracks. One can always add layers of clothing when the weather gets cold, but you can only take off so many layers in hot and humid weather.

If snow gets deep, a few of us put on snowshoes to break trail. If it gets icy, we put on Yak Trax or similar attachments to our boots for traction. Hiking poles help in any weather. Actually we did not need these devices this week because the snow was not that deep, although it was marginal, and it was not icy on the trails. We did see evidence on one trail of someone using snowshoes before us on part of our Wednesday hike.

Tuesday was windy and I needed a short hike in order to attend a meeting in the evening, so we walked from our meeting place counterclockwise around Lake LaGrange on the horse and Ice Age trails. This direction put us in woods, which broke the stiff northwest wind until we warmed up and we would have the wind at our backs on the way back. The distance is slightly less than three miles.

We observed some ice fishermen on the lake and there was a tepee-shaped stack of dry wood on the lake near the north end. The trail had small branches scattered on it where the wood had been removed from the woods next to the trail.

There was open water at the spring hole by the Kangaroo Walk, which is now half out of water, and the sky was red in the west for the last part of our walk. It stays light longer every day, and we probably will not need headlamps anymore on Tuesdays unless we have unusually long walks.

We split into two groups on Wednesday with Ellen Davis leading a contingency on a short walk around Lake LaGrange while I accompanied the rest to hike the white-blazed Muir trail plus an additional loop of orange trail at the middle of the walk.

It started out cold, but it was a beautiful sunny day, and we warmed up fast as we hiked. About half way we stopped at what some of us call “the chocolate tree,” where we enjoyed some trail snacks and I shed my wind breaker. There a bench is located across from a large oak tree.

We heard squirrels in nearby trees and observed a variety of animal tracks by the trail. We met one other group of hikers and when we finished, we talked to a person with snowshoes who was just beginning her walk. The trails were open to biking but we saw no bikers this day.

Happy trekking, Russ