When we went up to bed last night snow had started and the fresh new stuff was beginning to cover everything. When we came down this morning, a mountain of new snow greeted us covering everything that wasn't moving. Actually, Irving went down before I did, told me to stay in bed a little longer while he shovelled out a pathway in the backyard for Jackie and Jillie, who snuggled up against me a little tighter in bed.

Snow was tumbling down in great flurries and gobs. The temperature was pretty moderate; any higher and it would have come down as rain. We had a lovely, living backdrop to admire while we had our breakfast. And while we had our breakfast, the driveway was plowed out for the first time, and the snow was still coming down. Dan next door snuck over again to shovel the porch and the walkways.

We lazed about for awhile, did some reading, played with the puppies, and then thought we'd better get out with them. Wondering what conditions would be like. Usually when we have a winter storm like this it's pretty tough going in the ravine. Eventually, a thin trail results as a few of the regular hikers get out and begin to break a trail. But it's a slim trail, with the snow piled high on either side.

By one in the afternoon the heavy snow had subsided and just light snow was descending. What was tough was making our way up the unplowed street; the snow was thick and it was deep. It was heavy snow, Irving had reported to me, after he'd shovelled out a backyard trail for the puppies earlier in the morning; heavy because the temperature was relatively high.

Everything changed once we were in the ravine and making our way down the first long hill and it was immediately evident that a whole lot of people had already been out breaking trail. Trail? It had all been tamped down, the trail was wide and flat, bearing no resemblance whatever to what it looked like in the past when only a handful of regular trail trekkers would be out on a winter day. COVID has changed a lot of things.

And although snow had stopped falling outside the forest, it was still heavily falling within the forest. Great clumps of snow suddenly dislodging from boughs, a steady rain of snow falling off the trees because of the unusually high temperature. We needed our hoods to keep the snow off our heads and it wasn't long before our jackets reflected the constant rain of snow. Jackie and Jillie leaped back a few times in surprise when they got bombarded with falling snow.

For the first half of our tramp through the enchanted snowscape we saw few people. They began appearing in twos, singly and threes with and without dogs in the second half of our circuit. We had noted that skiers had been out, likely early in the morning while the snow was still undisturbed. But when we were out in early afternoon a surprising number of people were clodding past in snowshoes.

Clearly not  knowing what snowshoes are for, since the trails had already been well tamped down, and they were expending far more energy with the snowshoes than was warranted in these conditions, but obviously they psychologically connected new snow with snowshoe conditions. They didn't look the least bit happy. I'd feel a bit idiotic too seeing booted hikers striding through conditions clearly not calling for snowshoes.

It was so mild that the fresh snow wasn't sticking to Jackie and Jillie's hair above their boots as it usually does. Their winter jackets are waterproof and kept them dry. They discovered on the trails an endless bounty of thin twigs that had fallen from the trees given the weight of snow they had sustained, and were inclined to stop frequently to taste-and-chew-test any number of twigs as we ambled along.

It is remarkable how transformative a snow event can be in a natural landscape. Everything looks magical, the snow fresh, bouffant and softly undulating on the hilly terrain, the trees, both conifers and hardwood bearing their soft, white burden of frozen waves. The trunks of the deciduous trees reflected the direction of the storm coming from the east, snow plastered down the length of each tree trunk, the opposite sides clear of snow. It's a long-familiar phenomenon.