Deep End

In case you’re wondering, we had a bit of an ‘old-timey’ snow event around here. Ah, somewhere around 16” (40cm) of rich, creamy snow fell on us the last two days. Yesterday, an hour before sunset, the winds switched around off the lake when the barometer began to rise and we had ‘lake effect’, which we’re famous for.

Those Olympic tracks we set last weekend: gone, buried. Uller? Heck, there were places on Uller where the County forester with 15 years experience on Uller and the Chief, who built the trail 48 years ago, could’nt figure out where the trail went.

We’ve spent 4 hours on Montreal and 6 hours on Uller just packing down the snow. And that’s just the west loops of Uller.

We go out again tonight. We might be able to set a track on Montreal; then again we might just be packing snow again too.

All that time and effort done by volunteers, who’ve had to shovel out they’re own driveways at least twice so far, who are working, setting up a business and just keeping things running around here.

When we get snow like this, anyone can help. All you need is your widest skis or your biggest pair of snowshoes. Just get out of the shack and pick a section of trail and ski it, ‘shoe it, pack down some snow. The woods is magical right after a storm, you won’t believe how it will touch you. And you’ll help out the trolls on the grooming machines, just by knocking some of the air out of the snowpack.

Get out. We’ll be out. Maybe we can both wonder at this new winter world the big lake just gave us. Z