The first weekend of the month was the 4th Annual Northern New York Winter Camping Trip, an annual event by and for the New York Chapter of Zombie Squad. We had 10 people come this year, and everyone had a great time!
We try to focus on a local charity each year, and this year we collected goods for the Tri-Lakes Humane Society, and were able to deliver them on Saturday...we played with the bunnies and cats living at the shelter, and walked and/or played with every single dog in the place...it was wonderful!
My friend Rick and I were brave/stupid enough to snowshoe across somewhat slushy Polliwogg Pond, to spend one of the nights hammock-camping on an island in the middle of the pond...in this picture you can see us trekking across the ice and snow, me with a pulk behind me.
My sorta-pulk design was perfect in the snow on the pond, but a little problematic negotiating the twists and turns and trees and topography on the island...not to worry, Ben and I have plans to modify the design this long weekend...
We set up our hammocks on the spine of the island...the snowshoes were useful in packing down the snow in our camp.
We enjoyed the rest of the day with everyone else, and then trudged out to the island after dark, during a whiteout blizzard, which ended up dumping most of a foot of new snow on, under, around us overnight...the huge trees overhead would gather snow in their branches for a while, and then dump huge snowbombs on us...we could hear them falling through the lesser branches on their way down, and then crashing onto our tarps, or in one case the ground right next to my hammock, which blasted me with wind and then coated me with snow...it was awesome!
The pic above shows me in my hammock the next morning...about 10-11 inches of snow fell overnight, filled in our footprints, and even drifted up under my hammock until is was even with my butt.
This is the entire NNY2011WCT-ZSNY Crew
Ben loves the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, and this year they went all out, building a huge and elaborate castle.
The theme this year was Medieval Times, and Ben loved it!
As always, the fireworks were incredible
I also got to enjoy a day of cross-country skiing with my students from Lake Placid. It was a fun way to celebrate the Winter Carnival, get out of the classroom for a day, and enjoy the people that we see and teach and work with everyday in a different setting and a different way.
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