April 20, 2009

• Breakup Begins

  

  Freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw….  Crisp nights and sunny days have put a crust on top of the snow.  For a few days or a week or so, it’s one of my favorite times of year.  I can go places that are inaccessible at any other time.  When the snow is deep, and the crust is strong, I can walk along several feet off the ground.  I suited up early this morning and went out for a crust walk.

  The driveway is showing effects of the freezing and thawing, with a thin layer of ice hanging above the surface, and the water that had supported it, when it formed last night, gone, soaked into the mud below.

   

  I went up the berm on the far side of the road and through the trees along the snow ramp Doug and I built through the winter by dumping some of the snow from our driveway over there.  I was going fine as long as I was in the shade, but as soon as I stepped onto a spot the sun was hitting, I broke through the crust.
  

  

  One foot on the crust, and the other knee-deep in the grainy snow, I tried pulling my foot out of the hole I’d just made.  Getting the foot out was no problem, but bringing the boot with it was impossible.  I had to sit down on the snow to pull the boot and sock loose.  While I was sitting there, I took a couple of shots from that perspective.

  
  

  I hadn’t gotten far enough through the trees for the clear shot of the muskeg I’d wanted, but I turned back and stepped cautiously into my outgoing footprints.  Once over the jumbled, icy berm, I turned toward the cul de sac.  Several cats went with me, but most were out ahead where the sun was blinding me and my camera.

  
  

  On the sunny side of the street, mud was glistening…
  
  …while in the shade, frost still ruled.
  
  One big poplar has the hazy look that suggests leaf buds are forming.
  
  There’s no new growth on the evergreens yet –
  
  …just last year’s cones.
  
  And from the other trees, last year’s leaves on the ground,
  
  along with a whole winter’s worth of animal droppings emerging from the snow.

  

  The muskeg is criss-crossed with snowmachine trails…
  
  …and crossed by a single line of moose tracks.
  
  I walked forty or fifty feet out toward the cul de sac, past the line of trees, to get the clear shot to southward that’s up at the top of this entry.  I was walking in a packed snowmachine trail, and even it was getting a little slushy in the sunshine.
  
  My plan for tomorrow is to be out there earlier, before things begin to thaw, and follow this snowmachine trail out to a part of the muskeg where I’ve never been.  If the trail goes that far and I don’t run out of steam, I might get as far as the railroad tracks.  And, I might not go more than a few feet on that trail if I can’t be sure it won’t turn to slush behind me before I get back.  That snow pack is almost four feet deep, and under it the muskeg is full of even deeper holes.

  

  • 8:26 pm
  • 7 Comments