Walking in a Winter Wonderland

                At the risk of being pilloried by kith and kin who've had enough of winter, I freely admit that I love it.  While many have had their fill of sub-zero temperatures, heavy snow fall and shoveling, I just can’t get enough of these beautiful winter days.  I like winter so much that I grabbed an opportunity to trade 20 degree temperatures and 6 inches of snow in New Jersey for minus 15 degree temperatures and 2 ½ feet of snow in the Catskills.  It sure is beautiful up here – the proverbial Winter Wonderland.  So it shouldn't surprise you that the first thing on my agenda was a good walk.

                Being firmly nestled in middle age, I don’t need help waking up early any more – I just do.  But that suits me fine, especially when I want to slip in a good walk before the day’s chores take hold of my agenda.  So up I rose at 6:00 am and quickly got dressed for snow shoeing in the woods.  I knew it would be very cold outside, but I also knew that I’d warm up quickly dragging my 49-year old carcass through 2 ½ feet of undriven snow.  My choice of winter apparel, therefore, had to be breathable but still warm enough to keep me alive in the likely event that I would get tangled in my snow shoes, do a face plant in the snow, and struggle for a while to get up.  Let’s just say that I looked like Nanook of the North gone Ninja.

                All bundled up, I set out on the trail into the woods.  As expected, it was a tough slog at first, so after a few hundred yards, I stopped to catch my breath.  When I stopped to breathe, I finally started to notice.  I noticed that it was a beautiful day.  Though the sun had not yet made its way over the bluestone mountains, the deep blue sky reflected its cheerful hue on the pure white snow that blanketed the earth.  The grey, black and brown bark of the bare maple, birch and oak trees stood in sharp contrast to the breathtaking color above, and the absence of color below.   As I continued on, I noticed that each step was announced by the crunch of the inch-deep layer of frozen snow that capped the ample powder below.  Loud and plodding, the rhythmic cadence of my trek drowned out the sounds of Mother Nature awakening.  Or so I thought. 

The next time I stopped to catch my breath, I noticed something pretty powerful – silence.  No birds, no wind rustling through the trees, just silence.  I didn't believe what I didn't hear at first.  The Catskills is filled with countless birds, animals and babbling brooks, and the wind always seems to be running down the mountains and racing through the valleys.  But there’s something special about the early morn of a crisp, clear winter’s day.  The birds and animals stay tucked away in the nooks and crannies of the trees and rocks; the babbling brooks are hushed by the massive ice formations that slowly develop during a long, cold winter; and the wind seems to take a needed rest, gathering its strength for the next storm.  Add to that the muffling effect of deep, heavy snow and you get silence – profound, wonderful silence.

Turning back toward home, I found myself head-down, intently planning each step out of fear that my weary legs might betray me at any moment.  At first, the plain, white snow seemed a much less compelling canvas to gaze upon the wonders of nature until I noticed the silver-grey hull of a spent milkweed pod rolling into the crater created by my snow shoe.  Then I saw a half-chewed burdock pod and scores of shells and hulls desperately ransacked of any trace of food that might remain.  Then I noticed the tracks – animal tracks were everywhere.  The landscape was dotted with drag-footed, cloven hoof prints that pierced through the snow, some so big that I could imagine the great, elusive buck that must have left them.  The deer trails, scores of them, converged at the creek, crossing the thick ice as safely as Moses led the Israelites across the Red Sea.  The deep, purposeful deer tracks were juxtaposed by the soft, zig-zaggy, hip-hoppy prints of the field mice that meandered from seed pod to seed pod, searching for a hearty winter meal.  I couldn't help but think that the world was alive and well, even in the dead of winter.

I ended my hike at a favorite lookout point facing due east just as the sun peaked above Cole Hill.  Blinding at first, the sun reflecting off the white snow soon revealed millions of sparkling snowflakes that shimmered as clear as crystal.  As my eyes adjusted to the overbearing light, I noticed every color of the spectrum – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet – scattered before my eyes as if a rainbow had shattered in the crisp, cold air and tumbled to the ground.  If there’s such a thing as fairy dust, it had been sprinkled over the landscape before my eyes.  It was then that I remembered what I had been taught many years ago:  God created everything on the earth and everything in the universe for our enjoyment, amusement and amazement.  In my humble opinion, God did a great job.  The world truly is a wonderland – especially in winter.