Ontario Blogger's Day

I'm pleased to join host Cindy, of 'Just North of Wiarton and South of the Checkerboard', who is hosting Ontario Blogger's Day, bringing together some of us who reside in Ontario and blog about it.  Visit her blog, read the story of Wiarton Willie, and then check out some of the other dozen blogs she has featured there today.  Welcome everyone!

It was another great day for cross-country skiing here.  A fresh 3" of snow last night covered most of the icy crust, and made for great snow conditions.  The temperature was only -5°C, and the wind was abating.  So a friend and I started out to try the new nordic trails nearby which he hadn't yet skiid.

The trails go across some open country, beside lower Wodehouse Creek, still unfrozen after the recent mild spell, and then into the woods through planted larch trees.  At this point (above), a loop starts, and we turned uphill past the big maple trees, eventually returning by the trail straight ahead.

Near the north end you cross a wide-open field, which was fine going north, but a bit like the arctic skiing back into the breeze!  Here, where the wind had scoured the fresh snow away in places, there was still some icy crust to glide across.

All the time the grey skies we had started out with had disappeared, the sun was shining more and the sky was turning a deep blue.  Except for a bit of wind, it turned into a perfect day for skiing.  We aimed for this gap in a fencerow beside an old dead elm, and then a long downhill glide to the reforested spruce.

By the time we got back near the parking lot, the sky was mostly blue, a beautiful winter day for skiing.  And for those of you visiting 'Ontario Blogger's Day' from elsewhere, a pretty typical winter's day on the nicer side of the weather spectrum for this part of southern Ontario.

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