sweet snowshoe hike

Jen and I went for an afternoon snowshoe hike in the Holyoke Range today. Conditions were amazing after the recent storm. Trail had been broken most of the way, but the snow was deep enough that it still felt like we were exploring out there for the first time.

We parked on Old Mountain Road at the far west side of the range. After a quick quarter mile or so on the M-M Trail, we went straight ahead at the junction and followed the Dry Brook Trail for a mile or so east. Then, at the junction with the Taylor Notch Trail, we took a left and headed up to the ridge. At Taylor Notch, a big drift buried the road in several feet of packed snow, and a single set of ski tracks curved appealingly away up around the corner. From there, we climbed a short but steep section of the M-M Trail to the summit, and then followed it all the way back down to the car (with a slight detour out to the open ledges on the Hang Glider trail). The views out over the Connecticut River valley were absolutely stunning. The sun set just as we were finishing, which made for some amazing warm highlights on the cold snowdrifts. 

L: Fellow travelers; R: Up through oaks.

snowshine

a fire upon the deep

farscape

deep thoughts