We had a wonderful weekend trip, doing about 11 miles on our snowshoes with a +/- of around 2k elev. This is a private forest in Southern Vt. that is an experimental farm, that also has extensive trails over 2 mountains, cabins, shelters and dispersed camping, all hike in of at least a mile.

This is a kind of where's Waldo? This wilderness stream had 2' of ice on it most places, but I found this one small open pool- there's 3 wild brook trout in the picture. There was a school of about a dozen- very heartening to see in winter!

This one of the rental cabins- JimmyB, this might be a wonderful spot to hike to in colder months and stay- this old sugar shack has a big woodstove and is rustically beautiful inside and out.

The snow was very high in water content and the 18-24" only packed down about 6". Not a ton of wood available with the open hardwood forest, so we skipped a fire. Next time I'll bring a light aluminum fire pan and a small saw in these conditions. This is the first winter trip in 40 years I broke the 25 lb. pack barrier. It got down to 3 degrees. I slept in an EMS Mountain Light 15, my wife used 2 EMS 30 degree bags together. Neo-air pads w/ emergency blanket underneath us. We both were warm. I wore a fleece jacket, a fleece vest, and my Columbia Omni-Heat bomber.

It was incredible to see a normally shy critter, a Pine Marten, sunning itself out in an upper farm field. Last time I saw one, it was in Jasper NP in Alberta.

Looking towards the Tongue Mt. range of the Adirondacks

Looking across the Taconics and Greens in Vt.

Nancy with her favorite Merino sweaters she knitted. If I didn't sweat so much and have to control ventilation constantly, I'd wear them, too. We've gotten out a bunch this winter, and we'll maybe get in one more trip before leaving for the Grand Canyon 3/31. Thanks for looking, kind of a tame trip, but beautiful to us.