Area hospitals are busy enough, their emergency wards crowded with people awaiting attention in the aftermath of accidents and seasonal maladies. Winter roads in this area can be quite the challenge, and accidents do occur, predictably. The flu and other illnesses at peak season call on hospitals and their staff to do their utmost to meet the demand on their services.

And of course, there is the inevitable occurrence of pedestrian accidents, when people out walking about, particularly in the downtown core, happen to slip on the icy surfaces left after storms and more particularly this year after weather unusual in its frequency and intensity. I happened to read in local news that the municipality has rented as a pilot project mechanical contraptions meant to score through the ice on sidewalks.

Yesterday, we heard the typical racket of heavy trucks going by on the street and thought little of it. However, when we geared ourselves and Jackie and Jillie up for our daily trundle up our icy street toward the entrance to the ravine for our forest-trail hike-about, it was immediately clear what that noise was all about. Indeed, the thick icy surface of the road no longer appeared as glacially glassy as heretofore.

Whatever equipment had been placed on the plow that went repeatedly up and down the street, did score the ice, thus rendering it somewhat less treacherous than it had been. I had thought that since it was a completely sunny day and the temperature had soared to -4C (somewhat colder in the ravine) that combination might work to soften the ice surface, but of course it wouldn't and it hadn't done so.

But the scoring, though it was merely surface, did help since it threw bits of ice to the side of the score-marks and any kind of interference on the slippery-ice surface helps one's footing. And this, mind, with the use of cleats strapped securely over one's boots, giving a bit of bite and traction. In any event, as a result, our trek back and forth on the street was somewhat less fraught than it had been on previous excursions.

The sun was absolutely radiant, and now that it's higher in the sky, at mid-day and beyond it shines directly down on the forest canopy, easily penetrating ground level with the absence of foliage to shield it from doing so. Mind, as days go by without additional snow and with the temperature remaining so frigidly Arctic, the trails keep getting icier and more prone to slips. So caution is required.

Not only are the trails now more glassy, they've also been punched through so that what had formerly been a straight, narrow and flat trail, has become a minefield of sharp dips and hollows here and there where people's boots and the feet of heavy dogs managed to penetrate even the tamped-down trails during last week's rain and subsequent rising temperature in tandem.

It means we've got to be constantly aware and on the lookout for potential slips and spills, and we've had pretty good luck at it so far. No problem for Jackie and Jillie in their modest size and alacrity. The truth is, they're also cognizant of areas preferably avoided, consciously making an effort now and again to bypass too-glassy portions, choosing as we do, areas of the trail that allow improved purchase.

With the sun glaring its warmth down on the billowy snow surface built up over the winter season, shining and burnishing it to a fine spectacle of overall crusty ice, it's interesting to see how the light bounces off the snowpack, illuminating it and transforming it to a visual replica of what a glacier must look like.