Almost Spring?!

It's a azure blue afternoon, on what's officially the second day of Spring, March 22, 2008. The sky is crisp, clear, and spectacular, and promises to be very transparent for the near full moon rise later tonight.I'm just taking an afternoon to see how

the hill wintered and take a few pictures. First observation is that the driveway didn't look like something my old van was up to, so I just parked on Trouble Street and walked in. The snow looks to be 3 feet deep in parts of the driveway. The hill must have had a pretty good ice storm recently, the trees on the west end of the clearing glittered with thick ice.

The clearing was a solid blanket of deep snow with a granular crust, with only a few tiny animal footprints to mar the scene before my size eleven's tamped up the place. Even though temperatures were in the mid '40's down in the valley today, not much melting took place on the hill. The quiet beauty of the place was overpowering. A lonely hawk circled past, the only other living thing I saw for the couple of hours I stayed on the hill.

I walked out to the lean-to on the Pilated Path, then hiked up to Scout Heaven to check on everything. It's amazing how well these structures are holding up through years of stormy winters and humid summers. The Zuraw's and friends build solid!

The snow mostly supported my weight, but every once in a while gave way to reveal hip-deep powder! But it won't be long now before the ever rising sun starts to melt the snowpack, and the hill is again abuzz with members setting up telescoopes, scout groups camping out., and not even too long to the Volent's Memorial Day feast.

But for today the hill was sublime in its solitude.

-Ed