Skiing

Today I took my cross country skis out for the first time in at least a couple years, maybe more. This is the first place that I have lived where I am able to ski from my front door, which is a truly wonderful circumstance. Since the ATV was "froze up", I decided to get out on skis and check out the trail conditions. It was a warm, sunny day, so I was expecting the snow to be quite sticky, but to my surprise, I was getting wonderful glide. I travelled across the untracked yard, my skis gliding with minimal effort on the crusty, windswept snow. The deep ditch at the edge of the property was completely filled in and packed hard by snowmobile traffic. Unfortunately, it was also a mess of moguls, created by that same snowmobile traffic. I did not go far today as I mainly wanted to see what condition the trail was in. Tomorrow I may scout a little further.

While I had the skis on, I decided to check out my new trees. Most of them are completely buried now, but a few of the taller ones are still visible. Last month I measured the heights of all the new trees so that I can track their growth. Therefore, I was able to use them to gauge the depth of the snow. The average depth seems to be about a foot and a half. Some of the two-foot trees are buried under drifts, and one stretch was only a foot deep. You can imagine from this how much easier it is to get around on skis than to wallow through the yard on foot.