Yesterday’s trip to Mendon Ponds Park to do a little cross country skiing was a good thing. Although the day was gray and foggy, the previous night’s fresh layer of snow made for great skiing. One can always find interesting things to look at out there and you really should take a camera, but a cell phone set to black and white mode sometimes is handy to have.
Mendon Ponds Park is the largest Monroe County Park with 2,500 acres of woodlands, ponds, wetlands and glacially created landforms. In 1969, it was named to the National Registry of Natural Landmarks due to its geologic history and presence of kettles (including a well-studied kettle hole known as the “Devil’s Bathtub”), eskers, a floating sphagnum moss peat bog, and kames. This park is definitely one to visit any time of the year – 21 miles of trails for hiking, skiing, horseback riding, and birdwatching (feed the chickadees, nuthatches, and tufted titmice along the Birdsong Trail!).
My favorite trail for XC skiing is the Quaker Pond Trail, a 2.7 mile loop of fairly easy terrain through decidous and conifer woods, and over a wooden bridge through the rushes at the pond outlet where you might catch a glimpse of the beaver lodges. There are other trails like the East Esker Trail that are great for harder-core skiing, but this trail lets you shrug off those worrisome cares and observe your surroundings without sliding into a ravine!
At the Quaker Pond outlet
Yesterday’s adventure saw deer crossing my path not 20 feet in front of me, numerous birds chipping and calling, and lots of prints in the snow. Some I recognized, some I didn’t.
The first is a member of the dog family (dog, wolf, fox, coyote) and it’s probably a domestic dog since this is a walking trail too, but the front print has elongated middle toes. One can always hope that it is something more exotic! The second one I have absolutely no clue on. Voles make tunnels under the snow, but the center trail is not that wide. Maybe it is just a fallen branch print and not a critter at all! The next one is definitely a deer print, of which there were many, crisscrossing the entire trail.
Next time, I will have to remember to bring my camera for the colors of Mendon are many – and the camera has a bigger battery and takes better pictures than the cell phone!
