Snowshoeing Aspen Vista

After a warm and mostly snow-less December, we have had a beautiful January with several weekend snowfalls!  In the past week the Santa Fe Ski Basin has recorded 27 inches, and I've been able to enjoy several snowy walks through my neighborhood during the final few weeks of my maternity leave.  Earlier this week I went up to the Aspen Vista trail for some snowshoeing with Ady in her Ergobaby carrier.  It was so peaceful and serene, and exactly what I needed after the stressful and shocking events of the past week.  I needed to just forget about the world and all its chaos and turmoil for a couple hours.  I encountered a few groups of fellow snowshoers and cross country skiers whom I imagine were doing the same.

Kua had a blast running through the fresh powder, and Ady slept with her warm body nestled against mine in her carrier.  I love my girls!  The sky was a really interesting color that afternoon, very dark and cloudy with small patches of bright blue peeking through, and the clouds were moving rapidly across the peaks.  There was so much beauty and tranquility in the icicles hanging from the pine needles, the collections of snow piles in the nooks of branches, and the contours of the snow overlying the rough ground.  I heard the wind howling across the mountaintops in the distance.  I thought I heard a woodpecker but it was the creaking of the tall, slender Aspen trunks in the wind.

I was reminded of the beautiful imagery in this Emily Dickinson poem about winter:
It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain, —
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.
It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil
On stump and stack and stem, —
The summer’s empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen, —
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

Ominous sky with dark clouds

The peaceful trail

My girls!

Snow-covered mountains

Kua is in her element

Mom and Ady

Snowy tranquility

Aspens swaying in the wind

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