When I woke up Friday morning and rolled over in bed to grab my water, I looked out of my second floor Coffrin window right at my favorite building on campus: McCardell Bicentennial Hall. Looking at the building, I picture the inside and the effort that it took to put such an amazing structure together, from the stone to the wood. Just the day before we had been at the Vermont Family Forest Waterworks, the forests where the wood for the building had come from, and I could not help but picture all of the trees that were harvested and what the forest would look like if they were left to be. As I came back to reality, I began remembering that we were going to the Snow Bowl today, and quickly my focus switched to that.
After about four runs down the mountain, I decided that on my fifth run I was going to leave my friends and take a more isolated route down the mountain, stopping in the middle of the run to observe the trees, snow, twigs, and stumps that surrounded me. On my way down, I found the perfect spot and sat down. Though the sound of the lift can be heard in the background, I turned my focus to the trees and the peaceful calm of my surroundings. Through heavy snow cover, I identified multiple American Beech trees (Fagus grandifolia), Sugar Maples (Acer saccharum), Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), and at least one pine tree that I could not identify specifically (Pinus spp.). Though I saw no stumps, twigs, or leaves because of the heavy layer of snow, there were multiple fallen trees surrounding the trail, some of which looked like they had been pulled up from too much snow on their branches, others that were obvious deadfall. In addition, I was able to find holes in a line in one of the sugar maples, possibly from a yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius).
During my time sitting on the trail the thing that stood out the most was the calm and beauty of the snow. This trail had not been run since at least the day before and looked almost untouched. The trees had 2+ inches of snow on their branches and in the small valley I was sitting in, there was seemingly no wind. I could have spent hours there. As I wrapped up my observations and continued on down the mountain, cutting through the trees, all I want to do is stop longer and observe the trees that I am in.
