Meandering Through a Questionable Winter

Ever since I started Life in Maine, I've gotten e-mails from people who are considering relocating to the state, asking if the winters are as unbearable as legend has made them out to be. To people who have never spent a winter in Maine, it seems exile in Siberia would be a lesser punishment.

As I write this, it is 5 below zero, there is a good foot of snow on the ground, and we've just endured over 24 hours of howling winds that produced wind chills approaching 60 below. So, if one were to focus in on this one particular slice of Maine winter, then, yes, Siberia looks like the French Riviera in comparison.

But wait a minute, let's flash back a couple of weeks ago and take a look at a different slice of Maine winter. On this day, January 11, 2000, a most unusual event occurred. Were it any day in the summer, the event would not have batted at eye. But this is the middle of winter in Maine, and you just aren't supposed to see a sailboat out plying the waters of Penobscot Bay. Yet there it was, a persistent sailor defying conventional logic by not only still having his or her boat in the water, but by also having the audacity to take advantage of a mild day in January to set sail.

So, as you see, when one asks about winter in Maine, there really is no pat answer. I guess it all depends on when you happen to be here. Since winter officially started, we've had rain, snow, fog, sunshine, and temperatures ranging from 20 below to 50 above. Right now, we are experiencing the "classic" Maine winter, but there's no telling how long that will last.

So, given the variability in the weather, how does one keep themselves occupied during the long winter months? After all, it's awfully difficult to snowshoe or cross-country ski if there is no snow, just as it's equally difficult to go mountain biking if the trails are covered in a foot of the white stuff. What you do, I've found, is adapt. Don't make plans too far ahead, and deal with whatever is thrown at you. After all, no matter how much you complain, you can't change the weather.

It was with this philosophy in mind that a friend and I, along with my trusty canine Jasper, took to the woods for a hike through a bare, snowless, winter forest. At first glance, this particular mood displayed by Mother Nature could be considered perhaps her least desirable. The landscape consists of a muted conformity of browns and grays. The hardwoods, which appear so majestic and replete with greenery during the summer, are stripped to their essence, revealing the frailty of their skeletons. The lush groves of green and brown are instead gangly, tangled, and twisted conglomerations of stick and stem. The top branches of a good number of trees are split and broken, stark reminders of the ice storm of two years back.

Given the initial lack of visual appeal, a walk in the woods at this time of year could be viewed as nothing more than mere exercise - an opportunity to stretch the legs rather than enrich the senses. But it is this very lack of overt beauty that leads one to discover the heretofore hidden treasures that are overlooked during a summer hike. Take, for example, the view. I had rarely taken this trail through the Camden Hills in the past because it is relatively flat and does not lead to the spectacular mountaintop vistas that other trails in the park afford. In short, in the summer it is a relatively monotonous hike through the forest. But with the trees stripped of their leaves, I discovered that this rather insipid hike offered much more than a glancing view of the distant ocean and islands. In fact, during at least half of the hike, one need only turn his or her head to the right to see the mighty Atlantic, in all it's bluish-gray midwinter glory.

And, amidst the almost overwhelming collection of browns and grays, the greens of winter stand out mightily. Suddenly you become aware that there are an awful lot of moss-covered rocks in the woods. And although the dark green of pine trees are evident all around, there don't seem to be as many pines as you thought there were - at least not as compared to the number of hardwoods.

And then there are the animals. Or, rather, the lack of them. No squirrels. No porcupines. No deer except for the leg of one that somebody's black lab was ecstatic to have found. The only sounds of nature are the trickling of brooks and the peeps of chickadees.

We were not the only ones out on the trials this day. A group of teenagers and a few adults were busy performing trail maintenance, digging out the remains of old wooden bridges and preparing to install new ones. And in the two mile hike out, we passed a few other hikers who were returning from their adventures. Jasper, apparently feeling his age, decided that a half mile was his limit and sat down in the woods next to the trail, ignoring our pleas to continue. With age comes wisdom, and Jasper knew that if he simply remained where he was, we would eventually come back to him on our return trip and he'd only have to endure the half mile walk back to the car. He had played this game before, so we felt secure in our decision to continue on without him. You can imagine our surprise, then, when about a half hour later we were startled by the noise of Jasper running up the trail behind us. I hope I have that much energy when I'm in my 70s.

The unseasonably warm, snowless days of early January have been replaced by "real" winter weather now. And, as a result, we shall adapt, trading in those hiking boots for cross country skis for the foreseable future. Sure, it makes building a house more difficult, but the white blanket covering the landscape is a welcome site nonetheless. This is Maine, after all, we have to "earn" our summer. And what better way is there to do that than to endure a few weeks (or months?) of sub-zero temperatures and mounds and mounds of snow?