Go play outside

Looking north from the summit of Camels Hump.   Not captured in the photo - the gale bringing in a change of weather from the south. 

It's been a piss-poor winter so far, with lots of erratic weather, no big snowstorms, and the snow cover in the woods is pretty thin.   It's already late January, February is a short month, and that means that the spring equinox is not that far away.

Once consequence of the dismal winter is that my skis have been languishing in the garage and I have been staying indoors, spending too much time unproductive time online and watching too much television.  This is not my usual mode of living, and one which I hope is not a harbinger of things to come as I get older.

So it was good to scramble up Camels Hump yesterday, snowshoes were not required on the well broken trail, I wore crampons which were mostly overkill but did come in handy near the summit.   Once on the bare, windswept and glaze-ice covered rock at the top of the mountain I could stride around with impunity on my lethal-looking footgear while others balanced precariously in the gale.