Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Day Nine: Held Hostage

It is raining today. It’s raining and it’s icy. Not good. Nine straight days of no hikes and winter is winding down. I really am starting to feel like this is a hostage situation.

Both Atticus and I are getting stir crazy. All this snow; now comes the ice. Even yesterday, which was quite beautiful, was a tough day for us. People asked me why we didn’t hike. Simple, we couldn’t. The snow depth up high is such that we couldn’t break through it if we wanted to and the peaks we need are not free and clear. Friends have reported snow drifts of between two to four feet in places.

Looking at the various hiking websites over the past few days shows few successfully completed hikes. And the hikes we need are now all, other than Whiteface & Passaconaway, of the longer variety. We’ve driven around looking for safe trails to hike but have yet to find any. Even above tree line travel is not encouraged at this time. I have no idea how long we will be held hostage by the weather but this is becoming maddening.

Perhaps this is Mother Nature’s way of telling me to work on my book.