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Today was a beautiful day, about 10°C, mostly sunny, and no real wind. So I went looking for spring! Headed over to the university--figured the UHI there would be favourable.
Snow is only left in the shadiest places. Can you see it here?
In some places with favourable exposures it looked almost like summer!
But still snow cover in the shade.
The GSA garden is in a sunny spot and has some perennials trying to push through.
See them?
Meanwhile the lawn in front of Pembina Hall is shady and snow covered.
But somehow the flower bed there had some greenery. Not sure what type of plant this is. Could this be the elusive broad-leaf evergreen that Tom is looking for?
Most of the snow has melted from the Quad.
I think these are cedars? Someone who knows more about this than I do can correct me. Anyway, I find them a lot more appealing evergreens than spruce or pine.
First morning was very cold, local station recorded -12°F (-24°C). Station was in a Saranac Lake-like frost hollow, there was no frost on my car so it hadn't reached the dew point where I was. My toes got very cold walking to and from my car even with thick socks and boots. And they didn't warm up in the car but it took a while for the heat to kick in. I think the cold + lack of motion was a problem. Onec I started moving I warmed up. Bizarre combination, sweating while my toes were almost numb. A bit scary; thought of turning around. It was forecast to warm up fast so I wasn't too concerned. And March sun is strong. Still, I'd guess it was around 0°F at the trailhead. tried a trail that no one does in the winter to experience something more wild. Unfortunately, 3-4 feet of soft snow is very tiring to walk through, even with snowshoes. Fell into 1-1.5 feet of snow, then had to lift thru it, repeat. Felt out of breath, similar to a run. Eventually got used to it but slowed down a lot. And my right toes warmed up in an hour feeling toasty; left ones were cold but not numbing and slowly warming up. After 45 minutes, holes in the snow from a stream
Spoiler
Once the slope got steep, the trail got much harder. On especially steep sections, it was hard to push up. Poles helped, but often just slid back after taking a step up
With the deep snow and improperly put on gaiters, snow feel into my boots. One of my socks got soaked. Cold toes again, I was lucky to have a spare sock to change into. Guess the animal from the tracks:
something dog-like? or cat-like
Some creature that's heavy and sinks too deep in the snow.
depth of snow on a slope
I like this set of photos vs the 2nd set. That's my favorite. A good look at the risk of stepping on snow and not knowing there is a river underneath. lol Nice find.
Not sure what the tracks are. Was gonna say Moose for 1st one with the depth and the dragging. 2nd one maybe bob cat, mountain lion? but the formation is tricky.
Nice look at the depth with the poles. Wow that looks fresh. and it looks like you literally had to lift your knees to your hips to go a next step. Not fun at all, unless you have unlimited time and camping out anywhere.
Today was a beautiful day, about 10°C, mostly sunny, and no real wind. So I went looking for spring! Headed over to the university--figured the UHI there would be favourable.
Snow is only left in the shadiest places. Can you see it here?
In some places with favourable exposures it looked almost like summer!
But still snow cover in the shade.
The GSA garden is in a sunny spot and has some perennials trying to push through.
See them?
Meanwhile the lawn in front of Pembina Hall is shady and snow covered.
But somehow the flower bed there had some greenery. Not sure what type of plant this is. Could this be the elusive broad-leaf evergreen that Tom is looking for?
Most of the snow has melted from the Quad.
I think these are cedars? Someone who knows more about this than I do can correct me. Anyway, I find them a lot more appealing evergreens than spruce or pine.
These guys like their spruce trees though.
Nice Ed. Looks good. The less snow cover you have the better chances for
less cold air to come down on us.
My fav conifers are junipers and cedars. The Atlantic white cedar
(Chamaecyparis thyoides) being my fav cedar and is evergreen. My other fav
native evergreen is the red cedar (Juniperus virginiana).
They make winter less dead looking around here.
I took first photo ( Atlantic white cedar) in Feb and second one (junipers) in early March in southern coastal NJ.
I like this set of photos vs the 2nd set. That's my favorite. A good look at the risk of stepping on snow and not knowing there is a river underneath. lol Nice find.
You do seem to just like snow shots; don't care as much if there are big mountains in the photos. Also perhaps you didn't care for the bare look? The brown at the top of the mountain with no snow or vegetation is a rather ugly combination, IMO. Not going back till vegetation grows back. Rotting snow, mud, or bare vegetation while it's turning green here is not what I'd like to visit.
Quote:
Not sure what the tracks are. Was gonna say Moose for 1st one with the depth and the dragging. 2nd one maybe bob cat, mountain lion? but the formation is tricky.
Too small for a mountain lion, don't think there's any up there. If there are, it's very few. Bobcat? I'll show the photos to someone who might know these things
Quote:
Nice look at the depth with the poles. Wow that looks fresh. and it looks like you literally had to lift your knees to your hips to go a next step. Not fun at all, unless you have unlimited time and camping out anywhere.
yea, neat experience. Not something I'd want to repeat. I'm told mid-february was even more extreme. What I wonder is: what happen to snow from before the warmth of late February? It was warm enough for a lot to melt but not all. The old stuff wouldn't look so fresh. But it was insulated at the top, so maybe it still looked fresh-ish? Pinkham Notch went from 48 inches mid-Feb down to 12 inches back to 29 inches. Out of the Whites, it went from 1 inch to 17 inches before and after the mid March snowstorm. My guess is it was almost recent snow, with the depths higher due to topography. Some spots seemed deeper than other, so it must be the slope and direction.
So, snowshoeing on a foot of fresh snow is fun; 3+ feet not so much. Especially on a steep slope. From what I read, people "break trail" with a group, so the energy of pushing through fresh snow is split. Even one person having gone before makes it much easier. Here's a trip report of a group of five* who did Mt. Monroe [peak just to the south of Washington, almost on the way up] right after the deep snowstorms of February:
*Five and a dog. The dog went ahead and broke trail on its own. A guy hiking with his dog said his dog can find the trail better than him in the snow, dog just follows scent of people who've been there before. Another report:
It started out great with the trail having been used recently and I only had to deal with about 4 to 5 inches of fresh, fluffy powder. Unfortunately the packed trail continued at the junction up to Webster and I faced an unbroken trail. The depth varied depending if in the deep woods or more open and the snow either reached my knees or thighs. Snowdrifts higher up were quite a challenge. It took me over two hours to do the 1.2 miles to the top. I got prayed for help on the last stretch to the summit from Kevin and Claudette, who had come up behind me. Great company and we worked together and descended down to the car. Windy on top. The last 100 feet where icy which was easy to climb up to the summit with good crampons. On the way down we met some barebooters. I am sure they had "fun" getting up the summit cone. Hard work but a beautiful winter wonderland.
Today was a beautiful day, about 10°C, mostly sunny, and no real wind. So I went looking for spring! Headed over to the university--figured the UHI there would be favourable.
Snow is only left in the shadiest places. Can you see it here?
In some places with favourable exposures it looked almost like summer!
But still snow cover in the shade.
The GSA garden is in a sunny spot and has some perennials trying to push through.
See them?
Meanwhile the lawn in front of Pembina Hall is shady and snow covered.
But somehow the flower bed there had some greenery. Not sure what type of plant this is. Could this be the elusive broad-leaf evergreen that Tom is looking for?
Most of the snow has melted from the Quad.
I think these are cedars? Someone who knows more about this than I do can correct me. Anyway, I find them a lot more appealing evergreens than spruce or pine.
These guys like their spruce trees though.
You have considerably less snow than we do right now.
Anyone knows what bird this is? It sings at 0:05 and is visible near the center of the screen from 0:09 on. A bigger, featherless animal can be heard towards the end of the video, pay no attention.
Now that's a true winter wonderland. Going all the way to the crest only to find a nigh snowless landscape like you did must be frustrating. Dog named after a mountain. I know of a dog named Carlit, a mountain in the Pyrenees. It never climbed the mountain itself, though did numerous hikes in the vincinity.
You do seem to just like snow shots; don't care as much if there are big mountains in the photos. Also perhaps you didn't care for the bare look? The brown at the top of the mountain with no snow or vegetation is a rather ugly combination, IMO. Not going back till vegetation grows back. Rotting snow, mud, or bare vegetation while it's turning green here is not what I'd like to visit.
Too small for a mountain lion, don't think there's any up there. If there are, it's very few. Bobcat? I'll show the photos to someone who might know these things
yea, neat experience. Not something I'd want to repeat. I'm told mid-february was even more extreme. What I wonder is: what happen to snow from before the warmth of late February? It was warm enough for a lot to melt but not all. The old stuff wouldn't look so fresh. But it was insulated at the top, so maybe it still looked fresh-ish? Pinkham Notch went from 48 inches mid-Feb down to 12 inches back to 29 inches. Out of the Whites, it went from 1 inch to 17 inches before and after the mid March snowstorm. My guess is it was almost recent snow, with the depths higher due to topography. Some spots seemed deeper than other, so it must be the slope and direction.
So, snowshoeing on a foot of fresh snow is fun; 3+ feet not so much. Especially on a steep slope. From what I read, people "break trail" with a group, so the energy of pushing through fresh snow is split. Even one person having gone before makes it much easier. Here's a trip report of a group of five* who did Mt. Monroe [peak just to the south of Washington, almost on the way up] right after the deep snowstorms of February:
*Five and a dog. The dog went ahead and broke trail on its own. A guy hiking with his dog said his dog can find the trail better than him in the snow, dog just follows scent of people who've been there before. Another report:
It started out great with the trail having been used recently and I only had to deal with about 4 to 5 inches of fresh, fluffy powder. Unfortunately the packed trail continued at the junction up to Webster and I faced an unbroken trail. The depth varied depending if in the deep woods or more open and the snow either reached my knees or thighs. Snowdrifts higher up were quite a challenge. It took me over two hours to do the 1.2 miles to the top. I got prayed for help on the last stretch to the summit from Kevin and Claudette, who had come up behind me. Great company and we worked together and descended down to the car. Windy on top. The last 100 feet where icy which was easy to climb up to the summit with good crampons. On the way down we met some barebooters. I am sure they had "fun" getting up the summit cone. Hard work but a beautiful winter wonderland.
Since it was another 10'C sunny day (although with 16 m/s average wind speed ) I decided to go hunting for the flowers after I'd seen yesterday that they're actually there if you look in the right direction. So here's a post dedicated to flowers, also they're resized now (I thought earlier that you wanted us to have fewer pictures, not smaller pictures, and I like being able to zoom in, and they auto-resize anyway so I don't get the point, but hey, whatever you say Nei).
I was surprised by seeing these dandelions, sure, they're growing out of a wall, but they normally start growing in early May or perhaps from the walls in late April normally, not late March
Here's the snow drops from yesterday I was telling you about, along with some tulip leaves (and since I had to resize the image, you can't see it, but there's also those blue flowers I was talking about which I've now decided are some kind of squill.
Here's a picture of a pretty much 100% shaded place with the same blue flowers (squill I'm pretty sure).
Here's another pretty much 100% shaded place with some daffodils not too far away from blooming.
This nice little bouquet of crocuses (... croci?) isn't even growing in a garden, but I doubt they're wild... I think someone just decided to plant some random crocus seeds in the middle of nowhere pretty much.
Because just a few meters away, a nice bouquet of tulips is planted.
I guess one positive with the taiga is when the snow has melted, it doesn't look very different from summer, although that's just as much a negative when it actually is summer...
And then finally, because I couldn't resist, here's what 10'C, sun and 17 m/s wind speed does to snow.
Wow how inconvenient. I'm waiting for it to refreeze.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baba_Wethu
So here's a post dedicated to flowers, also they're resized now (I thought earlier that you wanted us to have fewer pictures, not smaller pictures, and I like being able to zoom in, and they auto-resize anyway so I don't get the point, but hey, whatever you say Nei).
Before the auto-resize you still download the whole photo. When your internet is slow, pages full of 3000x4000 pics can take a while to load. Also, when browsing the forums from a phone, it eats up a lot of data.
remaining trip photos. Another day's hike, 3500 feet elevation gain 10 miles. Series of peaks, highest summits 4300 feet. Warmer this day, around 35°F at 3000 to 4000 feet reached mid 40s down below. More March-like than the previous days.
hello there
Icicles on the trees
got back to the trailhead just after sunset
did the same hike last winter. 10°F colder and overcast but with a much more interesting sky
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) I decided to go hunting for the flowers after I'd seen yesterday that they're actually there if you look in the right direction. So here's a post dedicated to flowers, also they're resized now (I thought earlier that you wanted us to have fewer pictures, not smaller pictures, and I like being able to zoom in, and they auto-resize anyway so I don't get the point, but hey, whatever you say Nei). 
