I have about 18,000 acres of either state forest or WMA within 6 miles of my house. About 2000 of those have access about a quarter mile from my house. This doesn't even include Wendell SF or the Quabbin, which is 25 minutes from me. First thing I do when I move to a new place is get myself a map and compass and head out to the woods, or explore by mt. bike. I've lived here for 7 years and have done a lot of exploring and am familiar with a lot of these places.

But today I went to an area to ski that I hadn't thought of which slipped off the radar years ago. You can connect to parts that I do know from it. I have to say after all these years I actually was in an area I had never been. I didn't recognize a thing, not a landform, nothing. It was great. It was so wonderful to not know where I was, to have this woodland experience be so fresh and new and full of antipation. I kept wanting to go further to discover what was around the bend, to see if it did finally connect to something I recognized. It never did. It was a larger area than expected. It was getting near 4pm and because I was unfamiliar with the area, wanted to get back to the car before dark. Nor did I have a topo map and it was cloudy with no sun. There were all sorts of diversions and offset paths heading to different areas. I wanted to explore all of them and see where they went. There were so many I'm not even sure I'd be able to explore them all with what winter is left. I'll have to come out on the mt bike to be able to cover greater area. But then it started to snow and there was one trail that was just too darn inviting. It went through a grove of white and red pines so you felt you were going through a tall cathedral forest. Likely a pine plantation of an old management practice that was once commonly used to quickly reforest abandoned deforested land. You see them a lot around here. The snow was falling softly. All was quiet. It was cleared. A snowmobile had gone through once but it looked like it had been few days ago. A thin veneer of snow was laid over the snowmobile tracks making for perfect snow conditions. So I shuffled through the pines, just me and the quiet. The snow and ski in such harmony that the uninterrupted kick and glide gave a zen like quality. I was in a zone. The fresh cool air, flakes falling so slowly and peacefully. It was heavenly, a perfect feeding for the soul.

Never know what fresh experiences lie ahead in the day when you wake up.