The floor of the bridges tamped down hard from months of people stomping over them, fording the creek in the ravine as we move through the forest trails are becoming increasingly higher as the rails of the bridges become correspondingly lower; there's a difference now of at least three feet in height in packed snow cover on the bridge floors, due to accumulated snow and ice. Not quite as high as we've seen it become in the past, but notable.

Of the few wooden benches left in a few key strategic 'rest' places -- which is to say, what's left of them over years of being hacked by bored teens with nothing better to do -- they're mostly covered in layers of snow, inviting no one to sit awhile to contemplate nature unfolding around them.

Yesterday hit a high temperature of 3C, so it seemed quite warm. It followed on overnight rain which left driveways mostly free of the snow that had preceded the rain, but threatened to become sheer ice as soon as the temperature dropped again, and the same was true of the road. Slush, best described the road which hadn't been plowed by municipal crews.

A light ice fog could be seen in distant views. But for a change Jackie and Jillie had no need of boots. They charged off down the entrance hill to the ravine in an ecstatic show of appreciation. The creek, only the day before when the high was -8C and windy, was piled high with snow over top of the ice that had finally formed, and was now open and raging downstream with meltwater.

The footing on the trails was much improved from the state of the new-fallen snowpack of the days previous, when every step forward on an ascent was accompanied by a slide and progress was painfully slow and arduous. Under these new conditions, our boots made deeper inroads into the snow and we were able to proceed with far less effort. Even the drag of lifting each boot out of the depression in the snow they made, was less of an effort, that the balance and thrust required in the alternate circumstances. In some places where melting was ongoing apace now, if an unwary step glanced slightly off-trail, your boot sank up to the knee and it required a helping yank to extricate it and regain balance.

Other than that, progress was relatively free of the previous effort required, and we decided to take advantage of this brief interlude of warmth and clement conditions to extend our walk. It wasn't our usual afternoon walk in any event. We knew that before the day ended the temperature would plunge back to -8C with wind picking up strength, so we decided we'd go out with Jackie and Jillie towing us along, before breakfast.

It turned out to be a prolonged, leisurely trek through the forest trails. It's been at least a week that piled-up snow events and icy conditions have mitigated our hikes, influencing us into taking shorter circuits through the forest, but it seemed as though it were months, not a week, that we had missed out on the longer circuit. Oddly enough, we came across no one at all out, like us taking advantage of this brief opportunity.