nietzschescat
New member
The parking area at the end of Barnum Road is plowed. We put our snowshoes on in the parking lot. I carried my microspikes, but only because they are brand new and I haven't had a chance to use them yet, not because I actually thought we would need them. They were jingling like bells on my pack all day. 
The snow was powder and the rocks underneath were icy.
The day started out kind of gray and snowing lightly, so we didn't really appreciate the views from the Caudal until the return trip. There were some rock ledges to climb, but we were fine with the snowshoes.
It wasn't a good day for animal tracks since it was deep powder, but there were deer trails at the lower elevations and snowshoe hare tracks near the summit.
This is kind of a hard trail in the winter because there is a lot of up and down and no one has been up there since the snow so we broke trail all day. It was slow going especially once we got past the Camels Hump and started up Thomas Cole. I was sinking up to my knees with each step.
The sun came out by then and the snow was just sparkling. The sky was that crazy cobalt blue and all the evergreens were just loaded with snow. There was a nice little rock ledge view point up there but the summit itself was just a tunnel of trees. We turned back once we started pretty consistently heading downhill.
It was a pretty quick trip down the mountain. We fell a few times, but falling in 3 feet of powdery snow is pretty painless. We had nice views on the way down.
We saw a little flock of chickadees eating something on the little beech trees, not sure what it was , but they were really busy and one came within arms reach of me.
All I kept thinking all day, is isn't it good to be alive.
.
The snow was powder and the rocks underneath were icy.
The day started out kind of gray and snowing lightly, so we didn't really appreciate the views from the Caudal until the return trip. There were some rock ledges to climb, but we were fine with the snowshoes.
It wasn't a good day for animal tracks since it was deep powder, but there were deer trails at the lower elevations and snowshoe hare tracks near the summit.
This is kind of a hard trail in the winter because there is a lot of up and down and no one has been up there since the snow so we broke trail all day. It was slow going especially once we got past the Camels Hump and started up Thomas Cole. I was sinking up to my knees with each step.
The sun came out by then and the snow was just sparkling. The sky was that crazy cobalt blue and all the evergreens were just loaded with snow. There was a nice little rock ledge view point up there but the summit itself was just a tunnel of trees. We turned back once we started pretty consistently heading downhill.
It was a pretty quick trip down the mountain. We fell a few times, but falling in 3 feet of powdery snow is pretty painless. We had nice views on the way down.
We saw a little flock of chickadees eating something on the little beech trees, not sure what it was , but they were really busy and one came within arms reach of me.
All I kept thinking all day, is isn't it good to be alive.
.
