Two More Snowy Miles

Cathy and I and a third person went and did another two miles on the NCT on snowshoes. We went where others had hiked just before the weekend, so the snow was not completely unbroken.

Even though there was a path (partially filled in from new snow), we were perfectly content to just do a mile in and then back out. That was tough enough. I apparently have less stamina on snowshoes than I used to have.

It was cold, but we bundled up and were plenty warm. Good to be outside!

I had another event this evening, but I'll tell you more about that later.

Miles hiked in 2025: 468.9
Miles hiked on the NCT in 2025: 253.8

North Country Trail, Manistee County, MI. North from Udell TH one mile and back.

See Spirit of the Woods Hike- December

Spirit of the Woods Hike- December

Quite a change from a month ago when we were actually hiking, and in lighter jackets. Today, most everyone walked on snowshoes, and the temperature was about 28°.

But we had a good turnout with about 15 people and 4 dogs. I think a couple of people and 1 dog didn't make the picture.

We had more snow last night, so the trees were all decorated with marshmallow puffs!

Indeed, the trail was completely unwalked, but we put a strong guy out in front to break trail. I did a mile out and a mile back. Some of the younger folks went a little farther.

Somehow we've started a tradition of a campfire and snacks for December. Pete stayed at the trailhead/campground to get the fire going and heat water for drinks.

We had a nice collection of people who are younger than most of us. They had a good time visiting around a second fire.

One of the other things we do in December is collect Toys for Tots. This was part of our haul. More gifts appeared after I took the picture.

I tried to save a little energy because we had our first bell choir concert this evening. I'll share more about that tomorrow.

Right now, I'm beat!

Miles hiked in 2025: 466.1
NCT miles hiked in 2025: 251.8

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. Timber Creek Trailhead north and back. 2 miles.

See SPW Hike- November

The Trees I Wanted

These are the trees I tried to picture the other day, but managed to leave the SD card out of the camera.

First up, we have my clump of white pines that I planted about 30 years ago. For a while, they looked like the letter B lying on its back. You can see its evolution at It's b-b-b-Back

This is pretty interesting to me. The jack pine that caught fire from sparks thrown from a train in 2017 has finally fallen down. The fire didn't immediately kill it, but I guess it never really recovered either.

You can now see the "mystery tree" clearly through the open space. This turned out to be almost certainly some kind of hybrid cherry that went wild. It always has a beautiful shape.

There is no longer even the faintest sign of the walnut trees I planted in about 1974. I think the tallest one got to about 15 inches. All gone now.

The sky gave me a nice pastel purple show through the aspens at dusk.

I seem to be in a low motivational phase. I managed to do some editing and a load of laundry. I snowshoed out back. It wasn't quite unbroken, except my tracks had blown in along quite a few sections. I was thinking about going farther, but didn't. My victory of the day was that I did not stop to catch my breath even once. I just kept walking.

Tomorrow, I have to get myself in gear. There are things I must do before Saturday!

Miles hiked in 2025: 463.1

See Not the Trees I Wanted

First Snowshoe Winter 2025-26

It always looks about the same, but I usually blog about my first day to use the snowshoes each winter.

We got more snow overnight here, and there are maybe 10 inches on the ground. You can see flakes in the air in this picture.

I did about a half mile, which was plenty for the first outing. And the wind was pretty cold. It was all overcast, so there are no shadows to help you see the tracks. But if you can tell, yes, I was using the wood snowshoes. The bindings are shot. Cheapest new ones I can find are $50! I'm pondering options and temporarily still using duct tape for repairs, but it's iffy. I do like the wood ones better than the small foam ones although those have their purposes.

The sky looks pretty much the same as the ground without the line of tracks!

I did a little bit of work today, but it was really a non-starting day for me. I played my game more than I should have and didn't do much.

I think maybe I didn't snowshoe at all last winter. We didn't get much accumulation. At any rate, I didn't blog about it.

See First Snowshoe 2023

All Those Recreated Pictures

This is basically a duplicate of a post from 15 years ago. For some reason, Facebook has been serving me dozens of those pictures where people re-create family pictures from their youth or childhood. I don't have siblings. The few cousins I know of are too scattered and distant, and the pictures too few. But I did make one attempt.

I tried to re-imagine a family classic a long time ago, and it turned out pretty well, so I thought I'd share it again. The first picture is my grandmother, Emily M. Rowe, taken around 1940. She was a very active and athletic woman in her younger days- canoeing, hiking, playing tennis in bloomers (shocking!), riding horses, etc. She is snowshoeing here on snowshoes made in Maine by Native Americans, although she wasn't as active by that time in life.




I still own the same sweater, snowpants and snowshoes. Actually, the boots may be around somewhere, but I didn't try to find them for the re-creation, and I haven't seen them since. But I don't exactly remember throwing them away.




The bulk of my day was taken up with getting a new phone, getting it set up, and getting my apps working on it. I MAY have everything in working order. Probably not, but I can hope. Then, just in case I wasn't irritated enough, I went grocery shopping.

Came home and made a really yummy apple-cranberry coleslaw. That will last me a few days. Picture taken before I mixed it up. The dressing has dijon mustard and a little honey. It's really good!

So, I didn't manage to do much on my work projects today, just a little. Forgot to tell you I actually wrote 218 words in Vacation from Dead Mule Swamp yesterday. I'll see if I can keep that going.

See Can You Go Back Again?

Snowshoe Trail

 There is a trail between the Mason County Campground and the Pumped Storage Project that is designated as a snowwhoe trail. (when there's snow- otherwise, it's just a trail!) Today, Cathy and I went and did that. I suspected the snow would be unbroken, and that was true, so it was pretty tough going.

Part of the trail goes past the radio control airplane field.

As you can see, it was a truly beautiful day, and much warmer than we've seen for a while with the temperatures in the high twenties.

If you want to go snowshoeing, we've broken it in nicely for you now!

It's only a half mile long, so both directions made for a mile. Not much, but I made it without too much trouble. Getting stronger!

It runs between the Mason County Campground and the entrance to the Pumped Storage Project picnic area on the north side of Chauvez Road. There is parking plowed at the picnic area entrance, and a couple of places on the road just west of the campground entrance.

I also did computer work and some other things. It's great that the spurts of physical activity aren't making me too tired to function for other things.

See Snowshoe Trail, No Snow

Soup and ??

  Today I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. I made soup that wasn't "refrigerator soup." This was a recipe on the side of a box of crackers, and it kept calling my name. It's named Fall Harvest Soup, but whatever... you can buy this stuff in any season. Lots of chopping prep work, starting with a butternut squash.

Onion and red bell pepper (and the kale stems) saute to start.

Then broth, the squash, white beans, seasonings, and a whole bunch of kale. Really yummy. I've had two big bowls today.

Worked at cleaning up the kitchen, and I got a lot done. But kitchens resist being cleaned completely. I'll just say that I put in a fair amount of time.

Outdoors, it's finally looking a lot more seriously winter-y. Lots of white.

However, I did get my self out there and did a big snowshoe loop. Oof. Not quite in shape for that yet! So now there are tracks through the white. But the snow is deep enough that you can't really see the snowshoe pattern. I could be lying to you, and those lines were made by a deer! But my knees think it was no deer.

In other news: I spent the afternoon working on an editing job.

See Refrigerator Soup Day

Another Day of Tracks

 
Today, I went three times as far on the snowshoes, maybe 1.5 miles. The snow is starting to get thin. We'll see how many days I can continue. However, I have a "carrot on a stick" to keep me working on the book project and finish it completely, turned in, done by Tuesday. That reward involves being in pretty good shape for an adventure, so I'll be out doing something every day, even if it's not on snowshoes. This will also help me focus on the book again when I come back in. Too many brain-crunching hours.

I love everything about snowshoeing. Even the symmetry of the tracks through the snow.



While I was out, I found a cute little line of mouse tracks going directly horizontally across the picture. You can just see the tip of one snowshoe for a bit of scale. That's a deer track going up the left side.



The shadows weren't strong, so I played with the picture a bit. Now you can see the tail drag mark in the middle. The back footprints obliterate the front prints.



And when I got back to the kitchen door... my tracks had followed me.



In other news: I worked on the book all day. Finished the geographical index and am up to page 268 on the final edit.

See Of Mice and Mice

Stamina Up

 
Today, I went at least twice as far as yesterday and was less tired when I finished. Still not far, but an improvement.



And... this is the second day in a row I could see my shadow. Seems like we've had a nice amount of sun this winter. Michigan is usually very gray.



In other news: Bell choir practice and working on the book. I'm on the last pass through for final errors of any type. 160 pages are done.

	See First Snowshoe in a While
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First Snowshoe in a While

 
I think I didn't snowshoe at all last year. It didn't snow before I went east. I took the snowshoes with me, but all they did was slide around in the car. The snow then came to Michigan where I wasn't.



So, I got out for a short walk today. Maybe half a mile. My stamina is still not good after that cold. Dang.

But the sky was lovely.



Remember the letter B? It's still growing. It's lost it's shape and is more fuzzy,



And the baby pines that clump spawned are now big enough to easily find.



Hopefully, tomorrow I'll be able to walk longer.

In other news: I hunkered down and made myself finish the first pass on the index. It just needs a couple of tweaks, but the bulk of that project is done. Wowser!

See Surprises in My Kingdom See It's B-b-b-back See First Snowshoe Winter 2017

Attaching US Military Universal Snowshoe Bindings

 
I went for the plain old vanilla, search-engine-findable title because there isn't much information on this topic. The topic of attaching US Military Universal Snowshoe Bindings to the snowshoes.

The problem is the neoprene bindings I've used for years don't last very well. This is my second pair since I made the snowshoes (1996ish), and now these have broken. Duct tape to the rescue.



That was new tape I put on two days ago. Here's what it will look like after a couple of soakings and dryings out. Not really a solution.



Two years ago I ordered replacement bindings. The US Military Universal Snowshoe Bindings were a lot cheaper than the neoprene, and it seems to me that the nylon webbing should last at least as long. Here's what I got for my money.



And here are the directions. Right.



OK. How hard can this be?

Obviously, the toe strap needs to go in this location. However, after two attachments, I realized that the two layers of the strap need to be held together, or they will just slide off the toe of the boot.



Here's how the strap needs to end up. Imagine that the loops on the ends are fastened through the snowshoe lacing. Instead of the long end of the strap being loose, it has to be threaded through the loops below the buckle.



Here it is on the snowshoe. Also notice in this picture that the strap need to be threaded through the buckle from the back (square end) to the front (pointed end). That's the only way the buckle will hold the strap tight. That's an important fact to absorb before doing the other part of the bindings.



The extra length of strap should be folded back over the buckle and threaded through the keeper loop.



Now we have the toe strap on. What about that huge mess of stuff for the rest of the boot? This can help sort it out.



The thing that really threw me was that the side buckles came with the strap threaded like this.

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For way too long, I could not figure out how to make this work with attaching them to the snowshoes.

You need to slip the free end of the strap out of the metal loop.



This picture is how it must be threaded. The dowel is just to show how the strap will go around the snowshoe lacing. This way the strap enters the buckle from the back side, and will tighten down properly.



Here it is on the snowshoe, before it's tightened down. You can see the same threading pattern as above.



And tightened with the extra strap folded back over the buckle and through the keepers.





Now we have arrived at the real problem for me. Nobody in the US Military has feet this small. Can you see what's wrong?



The bindings are WAY too big and won't hold my boots tightly. Tomorrow I'll have to sew tucks in both sides of each binding, taking about 3" out on each side.



I did finally find one decent video on how to install these. It confirmed that I figured it out correctly. Maybe I'll make a video of this myself.

I'll let you know how I like them after I get the project done. But now, I can't snowshoe unless I put the old binding back on, or fix these.

In other news: I wrote Chapter 16- FORTY-THREE CENTS in The Secret Cellar, snowshoed, and did a whole lot of promotional stuff related to writing and selling books.

	See Varnishing the Snowshoes
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