Another Weekend, Another Snowfall

 

Visit #938, Sunday 22 February 15, 8:45-11:05AM, 5.8 miles.
Temps in the low 30's, tapering snow.

This must be the umpteenth consecutive weekend we've had snowfall. Well, when winter hands you snow, make snow angels, right?

Fortunately the snowfall tapered early enough that driving was no longer just for the foolish, so off to Hubbard Park I went. I was curious to see if last week's high winds had toppled any trees.

The Meriden Parks Department crews were out early and by the time I arrived, the parking lot and surrounding roads were plowed, albeit with a thin layer of snow covering the surfaces.

Snowshoes would be in order for the day, especially with the route I had planned, so on they went. I snowshoed up the steep hillside adjacent to the Soap Box Derby Track to the Halfway House, then broke trail all the way up to West Peak and the radio towers.

The white patch in the upper right of the photo is Broad Brook Reservoir; the white patch in the upper left is Meriden-Markham Airport and the adjacent landfill. In the center of the photo are the streets offshooting from Johnson Avenue.

I turned around and headed toward a trail which is probably the most seldom hiked in Hubbard Park. It parallels the road and meets it at the bottom where there is a sharp corner.

However, I wasn't the one to break trail this morning. Seems the deer were walking in a drunken stupor to and fro before I arrived.

Further down I WAS the first one on the trail.

At the bottom I noticed something new: While in the past I'd seen one individual bat house nailed to a tree, today I noticed there are more than one; there are five.

 

 

I picked up the road at the north end of Merimere Reservoir and switched from snowshoes to crampons because the road was plowed, walking back to the parking lot. By the time I returned to my car, the warm, 30 degree air and heat absorbed by the asphalt had taken care of the remaining snow. Spring can't be far behind.