I snowshoed through fields of glitter in the very bright morning sun.
Deliberately underexposed to show the glittering snow (iPhone photo).
It’s my favorite snow condition and occurs mostly in the late winter/early spring. Sometimes the glitter is all different colors, sometimes it’s white, like yesterday. It’s best first thing in the morning, before the sun has morphed the crystal flakes into other shapes. It’s one thing to stand and look at it, and quite another to be moving through it. As far as I’m concerned, it is pure magic.
My footprints, the only ones on the trail.
It didn’t appear that anyone had hiked on the trail for weeks. Much of the fun was trying to find the trail by finding the blue diamond shaped signs attached to trees, like a treasure hunt.
Blue diamond shaped trail marker on the trunk of a tree.
Next, I headed back to town for the annual Frozen Dead Guy Days parade. Frozen Dead Guy Days is a 3-day long festival that arose because up on the hillside, above the reservoir, Grandpa Bredo is kept frozen under 1600 pounds of dry ice. You can read more about the history here (with a few subtle inaccuracies).
This year, the festival coincided with Mardi Gras week.
With the good weather, a large crowd gathered for the parade.
More below the cut.
