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| Panorama of Kinnicum Pond |
By far this winter has provided the best Cross-Country-Ski Conditions in Candia in many years! Several cold snow storms delivered beautiful powder snow, which as hung around since the winter has been very cold. There were only two days in the month of February when the temperature rose into the 30's!
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| Old Porcupine Tree |
In late January Laura, Frisco and I forged a new path to Kinnicum. We began our journey at the end of Libbee Road with the field of the Golf course to our west and a mix of hemlock and hardwood forest to the east. The road traveled by snowmobiles and some other snowshoe folks provides a quick first mile or so of walking. We put our snowshoes on where the old Libbee Road extension continues straight ahead and the old ski trail turns to the right and heads up hill. From here on out it was a matter of breaking new trail. At that point in the winter there was about two feet of snow on the ground. We walked along enjoying the animal tracks and one of my personal favorite trees in town - the old Porcupine tree! To our surprise there has been very little snow mobile action up in the area this winter. This made our walk a bit challenging at times because of some blow down. But our handy flagging and a good memory helped.
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| Larch Cones |
We soon found ourselves in a purely hardwood forest. It was time to try our orienteering skills. Out came our compass and map, with a little help from a modern GPS we determined our approximate location and with a compass bearing started to slab down a pretty steep hill towards the pond. The walking was quite easy until we reached near the edge of the pond. We paced back and forth trying to find the best way to reach the pond with minimal scratches! After twenty or so minutes of looking we decided to head a little towards the outlet area and sure enough we found a reasonable approach. The key landmark is the only Red pine we saw all day - it is at that point where our marked trail turns north and takes you to the pond. Since it was a cold day we lingered just long enough for a photo and mental picture of the pond. The sky was clear and crisp blue!
Several afternoons of February Vacation were dedicated to skiing and snowshoeing in the Kinnicum area. This time my exploring buddies were the Philbrick's. With their past knowledge of the ski trail, we found a second way into the pond, this time from the north side. We now have a nice loop worked out! Our journey was memorable for many reasons. Some were the numerous tracks along the way. Right down the middle of the old railroad bed was a coyote track. Whenever there was a grove of hemlock there were plenty of porcupine markings not to mention the numerous deer tracks and beds. In addition, we decided to take both skis and snowshoes - this allowed us to travel fast to the pond and then snowshoe up the new trail! The challenge we found was all the additional snow of the month of February made the Libbee Road difficult to distinguish from forest! With the sun setting and the temperature dropping we set forth and followed the old ski trial back down to the railroad bed where we had the treat of seeing a snowshoe hare dash across the trail. It was then a straight shot back to the car across the beaver swamp via moon light!
The next afternoon was a chance to share the location with the next generation of Skiers. This has been a very special February Vacation indeed!
