1/17/2012 Able to extract no color; limited shape.

Here is a Rorschach tree: the extent of today's photographic intrigue.

What do you see?

Experts may describe it as a day off, but why would I trust an expert who has nothing better to do than sit around wallowing in descriptions?

Myriad grays provided thematic consistency as I snowshoed around the Maranacook trails. I meandered to Tingly Brook and back, detouring enough to create about 3.5 miles of travel. It took a while since I ambled, lurched, shuffled, shambled, halted, bolted, lumbered, ran, and moseyed, in no particular order, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I broke trail, sometimes it broke me.

Actually it didn't break me, but I am sure it could have if it had wanted to. In fact, due to my insistence that we continue to honor underachievers everywhere, it was a very chilled out endeavor.

Having destroyed my own snowshoes after one season (dang it!), I used some LL Bean Winter Walkers scavenged from a nearby attic. They are a little small for me (I think?) and I didn't even know if running in them would be possible. It certainly was; they were pretty heavy but they worked well enough. No shin/ankle interference or anything.

Also, because I remembered my camera, there was almost NO color today. Next I shall work on controlling the duration of the seasons, and perhaps the wind speed. There was, however, lots of sweet wondering and alone-ness.

Stark, scant, bleak, bland, blight; salient sweet highlight: shin was great.

~85 minutes of walking/running/stopping/etc on snowshoes
~3.52 miles
Gray skies, low 30s, much warmer than it's been
Fleece base layer, long sleeved shirt, windbloc vest, pants, gaiters, Brooks Cascadia 6, Smartwool socks, stoner hat, gloves (which I carried). Slightly too warm but wasn't too bad because I kept stopping - so it worked out.