I’ve come to realize that being outside in nature is very important for me and my psyche. This fact really becomes apparent to me in the middle of winter (when I’m not outside as much as I am in warmer weather).

Thanks to a nice blanket of snow that fell over the past few days, I was able to strap on my snowshoes today and hike around the nature center and adjacent park near my house. I wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the winter conditions. There were people cross country skiing, sledding, snow boarding and tobogganing. You might wonder how a person can enjoy the beauty of nature around you with all those people around? That’s the great thing about having snowshoes.

With snowshoes attached to my boots, I’m able to go through areas the skier or hiker with ordinary boots would find difficult. Especially the narrower, winding trails which are impossible for skiers to navigate. That means you can really “get away from it all” on a day when the park is fairly crowded. While hiking through woods today, I came upon a deer, a few different birds and I even surprised a hawk that was perched on a tree branch, eating something it caught for lunch. When I see all that wildlife around I wonder how those animals survive in below-zero temperatures and blustery winds like we’ve had around here recently. As I hiked up the hill the last fifty yards or so back to my truck, I also wondered how my leg muscles would feel tomorrow.