Winter arrived slowly this year in the Adirondacks. My cross country skis were getting dusty waiting for snow, and I had only managed a couple times out on my old rock skis on local soccer fields in an effort to warm up my skiing muscles. And then it happened – a foot a half of snow was dumped on us after Christmas by what The Weather Channel was calling Winter Storm Euclid. After digging out for much of the day, we were nigh on exhausted, but excited to hit a local trail for some skiing, and we headed to the Jackrabbit Trail in Saranac Lake for some fresh powder.

Other skiers had the same idea and were already on the trail ahead of us in places, but with all that deep snow, we still had to push our way through the powder, making somewhat slow, but consistent progress. We started along the railroad tracks at North Country Community College in light, yet steady, snow that persisted into the night. We wound through the woods, taking our skis off to cross snow covered McKenzie Pond Road.

wren Jackrabbit
Wren pauses for a break on the Jackrabbit Trail during our ski.

The woods were silent of any birds, and any animal tracks printed during the night had been covered up by the thick blanket of snow. But Wren was exuberant, running everywhere and bounding through the snow, as if the deep snow had bound up her energy and released it from a canon. She eventually tired, trotting behind me and allowing me to break the trail. She's no dummy after all. Her following my lead can get a bit annoying since she does occasionally step on my ski tails, but it often amazes me that she doesn't step on my tails more often than she does given how close she follows me in this manner. We returned in the evening, giving our steps another sweeping before crashing for the night.

We were back on the trail the next morning – this time starting from the McKenzie Pond Road access which had been plowed out during the night. The woods were quiet again as they usually are in the winter, but every now and then we heard calling black-capped chickadees and we found both a hairy woodpecker and a pileated woodpecker not long after we started.

McKenzie Pond - snow
McKenzie Pond is nice turnaround point with a beautiful view.

The Jackrabbit Trail is a great ski – particularly with fresh powder, and we wound around the bends and up and down hills (the down hills are great fun in deep, fresh, snow) back into McKenzie Pond itself – an easy turn around a little over two miles in along the trail with a beautiful view of the pond. Unfortunately we couldn't go much further because of plans to leave town that day for the holidays, but we returned to our car tired and happy after finally getting a nice helping of snow to get winter started.