JD -
December 12, 2000-
Day 8, more snow.
It reads kind of like a poor snowbound sole huh? Well, I am no poor snowbound sole. I have been getting out and playing in it every day, having a blast! I don't know how I would deal with being truly snowbound in the woods, but something tells me as long as I had my two buddies with me we would do just fine.
Today we headed north into the land of even deeper snow, Keweenaw County. Westerly winds have been bringing them heavier snow than the the rest of the area as well as the UP. There is about 2 feet on the ground there, nearly 6" more than in my neck of the woods. One reason was to play in the woods (ski) and another was to shoot my pictures for my Christmas card. Both were a success and we were treated to some
beautiful sights. I took the Christmas pictures with a 35 mm camera and need to get the prints developed. Once that is done, I will be sure to post it here and formally wish everyone a joyous holiday season
The trail we went down was actually one of the bush trails Chris, Marlo and I took on our ride Saturday, so there was a packed base underneath the foot of fresh powder. Perfect for a ski and
perfect for the hounds to run on. The snow off the trail was about 2-3 feet deep, as I sunk up past my knees when I walked off of it without my skis on.
If the pictures look peaceful, trust me, it was very peaceful. There is nothing as quiet as the northwoods flocked in 2-3 feet of snow. Any sounds that do try and get across are absorbed by the snow and my ears were ringing just to try and hear anything, anything at all. We even were treated to some fairly decent
snow squalls.
The trail breaks out into a clearing and there is a
small lake there. The trail also ends at that point so it was time to turn around. The previous pic was taken during a lull in the snow, it was still snowing, but only lightly, with the visibility at about a mile or so. I decided to wait until a squall came by to show you the difference. There was a squall on the horizon and it was headed towards us so I decided to wait, and the
hounds waited, and we waited and waited and got tired of waiting in the cold (the wind was coming off the lake and it went right through my jacket), so we turned around and headed back. As luck would have it, the squall kicked in when we were about 3/4's of the way back to the car, but I was able to shoot a pic when we got back to the car, just to show you
what "heavy" snow looks like. This was actually beyond heavy snow, it could be called "choking snow", as in: if you breathe in too hard, you will choke on the flakes. There is actually truth to that statement. In snow that heavy, you can actually choke on the the flakes. In about 10 minutes we picked about an inch. That is 6 inch/hour snow. It does not come down much harder than that. I have only seen it snow harder than that twice. Both last year and both up here. One was about a year ago when our first "big" storm hit and a squall came and it snowed so hard you could
barely see my house 50 feet away. In that squall, it was coming down at the rate of an inch every 5-6 minutes. It only snowed that hard for about 5-6 minutes, but it was almost frightening! The other time was at night, when it snowed so hard it set off my motion detector on the back yard lights. The light came on and you could see nothing but white, and I mean that. A white moving mass, but nothing else! Trust me when I say this place is unique.
My drive by about 3 different trail crossings indicated things to be in "mint" condition. Not a bump on them and plenty of snow. I got my sled back today. It was not the throttle cable, but actually a frozen carb. I need to be not in such a hurry when I fill it up and take the time to add some isopropyl alcohol. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of ... So maybe I will take a spin on the DNR trails. After all, they are a lot of fun themselves. I just have been riding them for the past 11 years and like to see new things is all. If you feel the same way, be sure to check out
Keweenaw Snow Expeditions. Sorry for the shameless plug!
Well, I hope all in IA, northern IL, southern WI and areas of IN and MI that got hammered yesterday are having fun in the snow. I am happy for you and with all the snow up here am not even one bit jealous. We are almost in mid winter form, some roofs have even begun to get cleared off up here. That did not happen until mid January last year. Mine can wait until we get about another 30-40", then will need clearing. Question is, will that happen before Christmas? I hope so!
Good night from the Keweenaw.