March 14…Pi Day. I had coordinated with our local rec department to offer a snowshoe clinic and demo day on this date, highlighted by some some stops along the snowshoe trail to have some “Pi pie”. Well, we had to cancel, since the ground was bare, with only patches of frozen crust. Snow was forecast for later on March 14, but not in time to salvage the mornings snowshoe event. Well, the snow did come that afternoon…and kept coming, and coming, and coming! We ended up with nearly 3 feet of snow, and had some pretty tough and challenging snowshoe outings! If only this snow had arrived before our Adirondack trip. The areas in the Adirondacks where we had recently visited received nearly 5 feet of snow! I was quite pleased with our amount, as I am not sure the dogs could have handled any deeper stuff.
The snowstorm did coordinate well with our scheduled return trip to Wheeler Pond camps in the Northeast Kingdom. We were thrilled to see a forecast for blue skies and moderate temperatures for the weekend. Our only concern was how deep the snow maybe around the cabin, and how much shoveling would be required to access it! We brought along nearly our entire quiver of snowshoes, preparing to be ready for any snow conditions we may encounter.
Our quick getaway weekend was great…not too cold, beautiful weather, and tons of snow. We did have to shovel to access the parking area, and we did have to modify our mountain plans due to deep un-tracked snow that was frustrating the dogs. But it was wonderful short trip, and the dogs have certainly come to recognize Hadsel Mares camp as a home away from home.
We snowshoed three different trails, used flotation snowshoes ( Mountaineers and Wilderness) as well as traction beasts the Flex Alps. In fact, I am due to write up a review of my Tubbs Mountaineers, which will be easy, since they are an easy snowshoe to love!
A cold snap has hit us this week, so we’re taking it a bit easy. The dogs are really sick of bootie-wearing conditions ( as are we); not that we are sick of winter, but it is exciting to realize we may be paddling again in 6 weeks.
We are soon off to NH and Maine, for our annual ocean trip. We are presenting two sessions at the New England PaddleSports show, one on canoeing with dogs, and the other on canoe camping with dogs. Of course, we will also discuss kayaking, too! I hope the dogs are as well behaved as they were in 2016.
Check out our page on Banff preparations…we pick up our GO trailer so0n, and will be giving it a test run in April. Exciting! More as we progress through the summer…thanks for checking in.
(apologies to those of you w/o Java, who are unable to view the slide shows)
Vermont Paddle Pups! 