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no snow and solid lakes and ponds has been a real downer this winter

Different strokes for different blokes.

I think this winter's been wonderful. Less than $5,000 in outrageous heating oil bills. Fresh snow to me is nice to look at for an hour or so, but is then just a tedious chore of shoveling, plowing, sanding and salting, clearing downed trees and branches, having salt and sludge all over my vehicles from sloppy roads, plus the danger of slipping and falling. To be fair, I've never been involved with skiing, except to sit in a lodge decades ago while paying hundreds of dollars to watch my kids do it.

Someone kidnap me to the Caribbean, please! Or take me back to pre-1980 California where I could drive to beautiful mountain snows in the morning and be back on the sunny beach in the afternoon. Paradise Lost!

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Fresh snow to me is nice to look at for an hour or so, but is then just a tedious chore of shoveling, plowing, sanding and salting, clearing downed trees and branches, having salt and sludge all over my vehicles from sloppy roads
Well Glenn, I'm with you on not liking the salt sludge and initial dig-out after a storm (though if we'd stop over-salting our roads the sludge would be less corrosive and less harmful to our waterbodies). And I've never done downhill - out sideof my opportunity and budget.

But I have to say, cross-country skiing in good conditions through snowy woods is right up there with a dawn paddle on a mirror-still lake or wetland. When conditions are good, it's magic. There's nothing like the muffled silence of a pristine snowy landscape, and XC skiing is a great way to get out there with minimal noise and maximal glide, much like paddling.

And as with paddling, the nice thing about cross-country skiing is that after the initial outlay for gear (and you can go cheap and used, or max out a budget on nice quality gear), each trip to the woods only costs you gas money to the trailhead or put-in. Low impact and high pay-off. For those of us who can't escape south during hard water season, it's good to have a reason to get outside and enjoy your surroundings.
 
Not a lot of snow l there Al. Same here for me. I haven't been able to go snowshoeing at all in CNY. I tried going on Tuesday after a little blast of snow, but the trails were still mud. Very strange winter.
 
We finally got some snow (12", with 12-18" more expected, all on a persistent weak layer). So that means Avalanche Warning. It's mostly a western thing!
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Not a lot of snow l there Al. Same here for me. I haven't been able to go snowshoeing at all in CNY. I tried going on Tuesday after a little blast of snow, but the trails were still mud. Very strange winter.
I’m here in CNY as well… been really rough non winter… 50”s next week after negatives this weekend… I miss the days of old with snow tunnels, x-country skiing and snowshoeing daily during the winter… hope February is better.
 
Good eye CTC!!

Yup, I wear my Stegers and anorak (LOTN) everyday while hiking my dog Jake 1 to 4 miles a day to and from winter camp … my snowtrekker tent hidden in the pines.

Yesterday was 18 below and windy. Other than a lot of ice in my beard and some cold cheeks, I was pretty comfy in my winter kit. The tent is truly a welcomed site after hiking in the cold. I run my stove, heat some water and read my book with a cup of hot chocolate before hiking back home.

I broke trail a few days ago in my snow shoes, but now that the snow is pretty froze I can hike without them … deer have been using my trail now too. Snow is only about 16 inches, but they still prefer my frozen tracks over the fluffy stuff.

Bob.
 
I'm jealous. Here in the mid Hudson Valley we're essentially without snow. I've had a busy winter and have had time for neither driving to moving water nor driving to snow. The swings between mud and frozen mud aren't my idea of enjoyable winter weather.
 
Good eye CTC!!

Yup, I wear my Stegers and anorak (LOTN) everyday while hiking my dog Jake 1 to 4 miles a day to and from winter camp … my snowtrekker tent hidden in the pines.

Yesterday was 18 below and windy. Other than a lot of ice in my beard and some cold cheeks, I was pretty comfy in my winter kit. The tent is truly a welcomed site after hiking in the cold. I run my stove, heat some water and read my book with a cup of hot chocolate before hiking back home.

I broke trail a few days ago in my snow shoes, but now that the snow is pretty froze I can hike without them … deer have been using my trail now too. Snow is only about 16 inches, but they still prefer my frozen tracks over the fluffy stuff.

Bob.
Nice! I just received my anorak kit from LOTN and the freight toboggan kit as well… I guess no snow will keep me working on the kits to be ready when that snow flies! Enjoy Bob!
 
I saw this on another site I follow and thought the strip builders here might enjoy it.
Any guesses how many canoes might be made from this pile of cedar?
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In case you are wondering how they make those stacks, here’s how.
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Jim
 

This is pretty cool, even if you can’t spell Canoe!

Mathew Nichols Photography is at Hoh Rainforest Olympic Nat'l Park.​

1h · Forks, WA ·
"Hair ice", or "bearded frost" is a rare phenomenon that only occurs in a small percentage of the world. It has played a major part in inspiring me to go "above and beyond" to capture and learn about the amazing wonders of nature. When I first came across this unique substance I was absolutely astonished. I had to know more, there were only a few pieces of wood that had this on it and I wanted to know why.
So there I began my studies and learned so much about what causes this. Though it is similar to the phenomenon called "Hoar frost" they are 2 completely different things. Hair Ice grows specifically on the decaying wood of an Alder tree branch, while hoar frost can be found on just about any surface in cold temperatures. Hair Ice is caused by a fungus that lives within the decaying wood, and this fungus "breathes" or releases its spores through the night pushing the moisture harnessed within the wood out of the woods pores, causing it to immediately freeze with contact of the below freezing temperatures. The small hole of which the moisture is released from is as thin as a strand of hair, therefore causing the hair-like ice to form.
I wanted to know how to find it so that I could show my family, I began to go search any morning there was frost on the ground and was surprised at how uncommon it really was. Because I had a hard time finding it again I began to take note of the conditions. I wrote in my journal the temperatures, wind-spead, humidity level, and cloud cover present in the hours leading up to my search. I eventually determined the precise conditions required for this to occur.
Surprisingly google didn't help much in learning about these things, I even had to make the determination myself that it only grows on dead alder branches. From there I waited for the right conditions to occur again, I wanted to not only know what caused it, but I also wanted to see it grow.

Equipped with only my cellphone at the time I went out at night when the conditions were projected to be within the "Golden zone" and set up my phone pointed at a fallen alder branch that I had seen it grow on previously, and began to take a timelapse of this incredible phenomenon.
I ran into so many problems with this plan. My phone would get too cold and shut off, the battery would drain too fast, and the lighting was very difficult to make work. So I taped hand warmers to my phone and plugged it into a battery pack, and then used a few lanterns to provide the proper lighting. It took atleast a dozen attempts to finally work through all my issues and achieve my goal of a timelapse from start to finish of the formation of hair ice. I will include the link to this timelapse in the comments
I was so proud and felt so accomplished by the end of it that my passion for photography reached a whole new level. I saw first hand what determination and persistence can create and never looked back. For this I will always have a special place in my heart for this unique phenomenon and will never walk past it without taking some time to admire its beauty first.
 

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