1/7/06
Trip to Pawtuckaway

4.5 miles

Kevin, Judy and Emma

Snowshoeing in Pawtuckaway State Park is one of the best things to do in southern New Hampshire in the winter. When a trip to the mountains is unfeasible we are lucky to have Pawtuckaway to fall back on. It is a multi-use park so there may be snowmobiles but they can be avoided by learning the trails and staying up on the hills and off the roads as much as possible. After spending years trekking around this park in all weather I can still find remote trails and rock formations that I have not been to before. The changing seasons bring different things to look at but the winter with its ice and snow loves to paint Pawtuckaway in its own style. Huge stones, glacial erratics, dot the low woodlands, having fallen from craggy heights hundreds of feet above. Cedars reach out from cracks in the stone that make up these hills and catch the ice or powdery dust as it lashes against their outstretched limbs or drifts gently down like confectioners sugar to blanket them in softness. On this day the latter proved true as the trees and stones were covered in new powder, the trees sending avalanches of frosty goosebumps down our necks as we brushed by. Not to be ignored, the stones like to use the powder to camouflage the ice which has formed on their surfaces and send unsuspecting hikers/snowshoers for a tumble down into the white stuff where it likes to cling to warm clothes and begin it’s miraculous change from cold snow to water and back to ice as it seeps through your clothes and touches your skin. I am sure my friends at the Observatory on Mount Washington could give a scientific explanation for this but my explanation is collusion. The rocks and trees conspire with Old Man Winter to weed out the non-believers, the ones who hate the snow and winter and long to move south. They get cold and wet and spend their time moping about at home all winter. Keep them out of the woods, I say, let them go south! Don’t let them know of the treasure that lies in the stillness of the forest, all wrapped in white. I’ll take your share of snow down my neck and slips on the rocks. You don’t appreciate what you should treasure. Give me your share and you can have my hot, hazy, humid days when I wish I was waist deep in a mountain stream but I’m stuck in a world of asphalt and bad air. Yes, Pawtuckaway is beautiful in the summer, too, but give me the winter and the solitude. New England is not the place to live if you hate winter. Go south! Leave the cold and ice to me and the other wackos who would rather snowshoe than lie on the beach. I’d rather have snow down my neck than sand in my trunks anyday.