One bitterly cold, midweek morning in 1983, when I was 7 and my sister was 9, my father drove us through the dark from our home in Lebanon to Pico Mountain in Killington. I suspect the ski resort offered free skiing during the 7 a.m. hour in hopes that skiers, baited by the fresh grooming and short lift lines, would then buy a ticket and continue skiing. But we weren’t biting. My father didn’t bring money for hot cocoa, much less lift tickets.
To make full use of our ski time we traveled the hour fully dressed — my sister and I anchored in our seats by heavy boots — and bypassed the lodge entirely. Despite signs reading “Experts Only,” we rode the lift all the way to the barren, black-diamond summit. While my descent couldn’t have been pretty, I didn’t cry or thread the icy moguls on my bottom as my sister did.
On the contrary, for me, the experience was exhilarating and empowering, as is the way with many near-death experiences. When I finally entered my second-grade classroom that morning, I did so having already explored another world and high on the gratification of a shared challenge.
I’ve been exploring the Upper Valley’s frozen landscapes by ski, bicycle, snowshoe and ice axe ever since. I hope, in sharing a few seasonal secrets and observations, I might inspire a few readers to do the same.
Winter adventures needn’t be extreme or extensive to yield rewards. A secret of the season is that its elements — coldness, darkness and mercurial ground cover — drastically lower the bar for what’s considered epic. I enter the house from a short dog walk on a sub-zero day feeling triumphant. Perhaps it’s the metal, medieval-like microspikes chained to my feet or my multi-layered enormousness, but for a moment I am Russell Crowe’s Maximus, the last warrior standing in the gladiatorial ring.
Summer strolls just don’t deliver in this way.
During January’s icy early weeks, my husband and I rode Lebanon’s Boston Lot trail network with another couple. While the studded tires on our fatbikes are revolutionary, even they were no match for the sheer ice along the quarry’s ridge. Forming a line, we were able to slide our bikes and ourselves to one another down the steepest sections. In single-digit temperatures, huddled around one map, we worked to determine the best route out. People pay for such challenge and camaraderie through devilishly designed Spartan Races and Ninja Warrior competitions. Here in the Upper Valley, a wintertime double date will do.
Winter outings provide opportunity to appreciate the genius of nature, whatever its provenance. Nothing awes and humbles like the sight of an irrepressible chickadee or snow flea on a freezing day, warm of their biological endowment while I shiver in the best materials science has to offer. And what of otherwise-familiar landscapes new again with every storm? Inspiring.
I decided just yesterday while snowshoeing under crystalized branches in an utterly white world that should my fleece-and-jeans style grow stale (as my mother implies it has), or should my family take me for granted the way one does a predictably temperate summer, I will follow nature’s lead and don a fitted white gown and crystal jewels.
Another secret to appreciating the winter season is to recognize what is does not offer: ticks, mosquitoes and soft dog excrement come to mind.
In many Upper Valley communities, including Meriden, Lyme, Dorchester, Norwich and Etna, residents and visitors can snowshoe, pedal or glide across landscapes availed by beneficent landowners and maintained by hearty volunteers. When adventuring on these properties, one can’t help but feel uplifted by such goodwill and good fortune.
Lastly, winter adventures grow confidence and perspective. On even the coldest of days, I trust I can make the dreaded, stiff shuffle-sprint from my car to the grocery store entrance. I know, despite biting wind, I can show my first-grade charges a good time at ski practice.
I know — because I’ve been training for it since an early hour ski adventure on a midweek morning in 1983.
Rebecca Perkins Hanissian lives in Lyme.