Yesterday dawn emerged from a moderate temperature night to rain showers. Good, we thought, it will wash away some of the snow. And perhaps it did before it eventually stopped. The snowpack in the ravine had softened, and the glazing of ice over the trails was replaced with a little bit of snow mush. Our street, which hadn't been plowed by the municipality after the last snowfall, was an absolute mess. It seemed more difficult plodding up the street the brief few minutes it takes to achieve the ravine trailhead than our hour's ramble through the woods.

This morning the day was heralded with snow flurries sent in every direction by a sharp wind whipping the snow into a frenzy of movement. We knew that the temperature was destined to drop overnight, but not by much, last night. This evening it will be different, it will descend to -18C. We had anticipated that the easy going on the snow-and-ice-softened trails of yesterday would be transformed by this afternoon, and we were right.

The trails have, once again, become a challenge to negotiate. Which explains more than adequately why we briefly saw at a distance only one other person out there, and Benjie with her, the amiable large Belgian sheep dog who likes to get close up and personal.

Yesterday our trail walk was an interesting exercise in forest gloom with a heavy cloud cover interspersed with brief periods of beaming light, when the sun emerged, a giant fiery gaseous ball of energy lighting the atmosphere with its vibrancy and increasing warmth. Today the sun was out full-time, so that made it very pleasant, but the wind, unusually sharp and biting, managed to make its way through much of the forest, making it appear colder than the -3C we were walking in.

Jackie and Jillie had no trouble negotiating the trails, running off trail into smaller  pathways made by larger dogs the previous day -- eager to see whether there was something they might be missing by emaining on the trail. Ascending and descending the hills called for a little caution on our part in recognition that the trails had indeed acquired yet again a layer of ice, so that even with our ice cleats strapped over our boots we found ourselves slipping.