Sunny-16 Day

It was a "sunny-16" day! Which means if you set the f-stop on your camera to f16, the photo comes out perfect.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and temperatures lingered at 20F.  We had a pretty hefty load of snow early this morning.  I think there is about 8-9" of new powder.  

I decided that today's snowshoe would be up to the "High Blue" overlook.  I drove up to Scovill Rd. near the radio tower.  You can make this hike from my house but with all the snow, and likely no broken trail, it would have taken me a couple hours one way.  So I parked on Scovill Rd. and walked in via a logging road.  It looked as though maybe someone had attemtped to snowmobile through there a while ago. No one had been through since the new snowfall.  Evvy bounded and rooted through the new fluff.  The view at High Blue was spectacular!  (double click on the photo for a better look) You could see forever, to the west(Vermont).  All the big ski mountains were visible, Okemo, Stratton, Snow.  I could only imagine the perfect ski conditions.  I don't ski much anymore because of arthritic knees. I can do only about 2-3 hours of schussing.  A half-day ticket is just the right amount of time.

After poking around the High Blue we made our way northward through the conservation land, back across the logging road and up to another summit.  The radio tower was to the west, and my destination was a large flat spot of granite where I had seen a Moose once before.   No sign of moose or deer, or anything but maybe a snowshoe hare.  I saw a Pileated Woodpecker which is always a nice surprise.   We made a big sweeping loop westward, and back to the logging road where we met another lady and her Burmese Mtn. dog, "Maggie".  Maggie wasn't all that psyched to see Evvy.  Evvy just wants to play with every dog she meets.   Maggie and her mistress had been following our trail up until we crossed the logging road to moose territory.

They basically headed us off at the pass.  We all walked back out to Scovill Rd, where we met yet another lady and her big Chocolate Lab, "Sebastian".   Evvy wanted to play with him too, and he wasn't phased at all.  So after all the dogs had enough of sniffing their various ends, I collected Evvy and sent her back into the truck.  Another successful snowshoe hike.