There are about 9 miles of permanent trails at Beaver Lake Nature Center, and in the winter, use is designated, with the longer trails reserved for cross-country skiing and the shorter trails open for walking. But when snow conditions are right, two additional seasonal trails open for snowshoeing. Unfortunately, it's been a frustrating winter for snow activities. We've received more than 130 inches of snow this season, but wild temperature fluctuations have caused it to melt rapidly after each storm. We got about two feet of snow mid-week, and the temperatures finally stayed cool long enough so we still had snow on the weekend. This was the first weekend all winter that we've had enough snow on the weekend to go snowshoeing locally.
Ridiculous... but so exciting!
I decided Frankie and I would take the Southern Exposure Trail. At 2.2 miles, this is the longer of the two snowshoe trail; the Northern Exposure Trail is just 1.3 miles. Since we so rarely get such perfect snowshoeing conditions, I wanted to make the most of it. Even without any practice yet this year, Frankie's snowshoeing skills have greatly improved: no more stepping on his own snowshoes. He was able to move around easily: running, jumping, climbing over things. He did fall down a lot, but that was entirely by design, run and flop, run and flop. He got overheated with all the dashing about, and I wished I brought his rain coat, so he could have had a lighter-weight shell. We did stop and remove his mid-layer, but he refused to take off his coat, like I did, because he wanted to keep playing in the snow. We had so much fun!
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| download trail map from Friends of Beaver Lake |
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