The Last Snow Hike?

Click on the images to enjoy them even snowier

After our recent snowfall, possibly the season’s last, I decided I had better get my boots on and head to some areas of photographic potential if I wanted to get any snowy scenes. After all, it’s March, and spring is nigh.

So on March fourth, I marched forth (sorry) into Campgaw Mountain County Reservation, not far from home, and hiked the lengths of Hemlock and Indian Trails, shutter-snapping as I trudged on already well-trodden paths.

It’s surprising what snow cover does to a landscape, besides the obvious whitening. The pristine blanket both adds and subtracts detail. Gone is the confusion of fallen twigs, branches, leaf litter and smaller scattered glacial boulders. Added are shadows, both stark and subtle, of tree trunks and in the gentle irregularities in the snowy surface. Larger boulders, in other seasons often unnoticed among the clutter, now show off their surface detail of cracks, nicks and scratches, evidence of the rough treatment they received during their glacial journey long ago.

The simplified landscape almost forces us to see those finer details—the great variety of color and texture of the crustose and foliose lichens decorating the boulders; the unmistakable curly bark of the yellow birch; the heavily lenticeled bark of the black birch, sprinkled with tiny brown fungi; a snow-capped log, showing signs both of decay and of its former life; the straight-laced, strictly parallel branch veins of a fallen beech leaf.

But while enjoying all that which is revealed by the snow, we can easily forget that snow itself is one of the most amazing phenomena, indeed one of the most unique substances in all of Creation. The idea that sparkling, intricately patterned hexagonal crystals of frozen water can fall from the sky in enough quantity to cover the earth, sometimes several feet deep, is amazing in itself. But the uniqueness of water as a substance is even more so.

The three-atom water molecule is polar, positive at the hydrogen end, negative at the oxygen end. That allows the molecules to cling to each other and gives water its unique properties—properties that allow life to exist on our planet. Water is harder to heat or cool, harder to freeze, melt or evaporate, than almost any other substance. Instead of continuing to contract as it nears the freezing point, it expands, making it less dense, so that ice floats instead of sinking. (Who wants to skate on the bottom of a pond?) And water can dissolve more substances than almost any other solvent.

Of course, the amazing water molecule is just one of hundreds of design features, both terrestrial and astronomical, that the Creator has put in place and precisely calibrated in order to make Earth a suitable home for life in all its tremendous variety, and especially for those made in His image.

Looking at our surroundings these days, we see a Creation somewhat out of kilter, poorly calibrated, even less than suitable, making life difficult or even miserable. The “very good” original Creation, cursed by the entrance of sin, awaits its redemption.

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Snow is an apt example of the mixed messages sent by the good/not-so-good Creation. We love snow for its Currier and Ives Christmas card scenic beauty; we hate it when we have to shovel it or when it impedes our travel. Skiers love the invigorating recreation it provides, but they hate the injuries and even death it can cause.

My short snowy hike, perhaps the last of the season, was all Currier and Ives, with no bumps, bruises or casts to show for it. The resultant photographs certainly can’t match the images produced by those iconic lithographers—but enjoy them anyway, for what they’re worth.

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p.s. Currier and Ives also illustrated disasters, like the burning of the Steamboat Lexington, but for obvious reasons, that scene was never used on a Christmas card. But it further supports the point that the very good Creation was horribly wounded by the occurrences recorded in Genesis 3.

Soli Deo Gloria