Fresh snow after a valley storm

Amazing!  We began our ski at 2 in the afternoon and no one had disturbed the snow along the old rail bed – fresh, fresh snow!  And over a foot ( 30.5 cm) deep.  It was lovely, light and not too powdery for cross country skiing.  And how do I know that it was at least a foot deep?  Because it came up to the first joint on my ski poles – my old bamboo poles.  Drifts were past my knees.

There were no signs of people in the snow, but traffic on the trail had been heavy since the storm yesterday.  There were tiny little tracks, bigger tracks and bigger ones still and others that dove below the snow.  The neatest we was saw was not a track at all, but feather imprints.  We almost skied  right over them, and unfortunately obliterated some.  It seems like a large bird was taking off.  My guess is we’ve caught impressions of tail feathers and the wing tip hitting the snow as the bird takes off.  (There were other feather imprints below the picture frame where we skied.) What do you think?

Bank swallows along the Annapolis River

One of the great things about winter is the chance to go places we don’t or can’t normally go…perhaps because its too far or too difficult.  For me this often means too many brambles in the summer.  Today we covered a bit of both, we went for a ski in one of our favorite places, BelleIsle Marsh along the Annapolis River.  We followed snow mobile trails for some of the way and broke trail for some of the way because I wanted to see the river up close and no trails led to shore.  As it turned out, we skiied on the ice for a short distance.  We had a great view of the river bank and discovered small holes in the earth.  I thought these were made by cliff swallows, but no, a bit of online research shows that these small holes are made by bank swallows, also called sand martins. Check out these images and these too. (I know, cliff swallows make mud nests, but I thought they might make nests in holes too…what can I say – I’m not a birder!) And here are my images.

The snow was excellent and this has been a wonderful couple of weeks for snow shoeing and skiing, just tons of snow!  At BelleIsle open fields are divided by tree breaks and dykes and marsh.  The open areas have little snow that is well packed, but along the trees and dykes there are deep drifts – a lot more work!  The road to the regular parking lot is not plowed, so be prepared to ski from the highway.

skiing off the rails

Cross country skiing is a great way to tour a familiar trail.  It is a bit like visiting with an old friend in new surroundings.  Not every trail will lend itself to this switch, but for those that do discoveryand familiarity create a surprising blend.  Today we got out the skis to try the old rail bed in the Annapolis Valley.  It is a very flat trail and today, the snow was well packed by snowmobile and all terain vechicle traffic.  We didn’t meet any on our afternoon ski though, so it was very pleasant indeed.  We did meet a few people out in the sun for a walk.   Really, the trail was firmly enough packed to walk, but it was lots of fun zipping along – the snow was very fast!  With this speed, we went farther than we usually do.

The flat terrain allowed us to concentrate on our surroundings as the old rail bed passed close to the Annapolis River and then through cultivated fields.  In one spot as we sped by alders and birch the snow was covered in little brown specks, almost like a sprinkling of brown sugar or cinamon.  A close look showed these specks to be the seeds from the alder or birch growing near by.