No longer me.

I recall being in the woods on a snowy day just south of Bethel. I was familiar with this part of the woods, having walked in the area many times. This time was in winter, and I even had my compass with me.

But I knew this woods well and had no need for a compass. I tromped just a mile or so into the woods and then turned to head back to the car.

"I don't need the compass," I said to me, "but just for the fun of it, I'll follow it and see where it brings me."

It brought me right back to the car.

Wow! I wondered where my knowledge of these woods would have taken me. And it was winter, no time to fool around.

An adult ed student in one of my writing classes told me she had snow camped atop Bigelow Mountain. She had dug into the snow and built a cave, which she said had been quite comfortable.

Good. But I like my winter caves to be indoors, the sofa, a good book, a class of wine, and the reassuring sound of the boiler running in the basement with the baseboards clicking as they bring on the heat.

A passenger on one of my buses the other day said she had recently attended an Appalachian Mountain Club event at the Zealand Falls hut some 2,700 feet into the sky along the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains. The walk to the hut had been six miles long, and while she didn't really need her snowshoes because a fair number of others were walking ahead of her, she wore them.

"It was easier to wear them than to carry them," she said.

The walk may have been the easy part.

The temperature that night dipped to a seasonal 17 degrees above zero F, she said. Not having an abundance of firewood on hand, since everything is carried by hut workers up the trail, the AMC hosts allowed use of the hut's heating stoves from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m.

I asked her what she did before and after that time. Her reply was that she wore every speck of clothing she had brought.

The view was beautiful, she said.

An AMC member, she loves the outdoors.

I love the outdoors too, and I recall climbing a low mountain in South Paris that overlooked Mount Washington some 30 miles due west. It protruded above the miles of snow-covered terrain between me and it. It wasn't that cold that day, and I was perhaps an hour from my car at the farthest. A great winter outing.

I've cross-country skied when the temperature was a balmy ten degrees F above zero. Below that, my fingers became cold because you have to use your fingers to cross-country ski. (And you thought you used skis, didn't you.)

But my friend wasn't on a low mountain in South Paris. She was up in the Whites, where it was a lot higher and a lot snowier and a lot colder. She was also staying along the frozen Appalachian Trail, which there is maintained by AMC along with the series of high-elevation huts.

Because I meet so many people who don't quite get the difference between the Appalachian Mountain Club and the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, which is usually the center of my discussions with them, it may be helpful to pause right here on the snowy trail -- or in my study, as the case really is -- and explain a bit.

The Appalachian Mountain Club was founded in Boston in 1876. It's mission statement on the AMC website states, "The Appalachian Mountain Club promotes the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the mountains, forests, waters, and trails of the Appalachian region.

We believe these resources have intrinsic worth and also provide recreational opportunities, spiritual renewal, and ecological and economic health for the region. Because successful conservation depends on active engagement with the outdoors, we encourage people to experience, learn about, and appreciate the natural world."

Overview

"Our 16,000 volunteers, 450 full time and seasonal staff, and 100,000 members, supporters, and advocates are central to our mission. Our staff offers outdoor experiences and programs focused on our Maine and New Hampshire huts and lodges, while our 12 chapters from Maine to Washington, D.C. offer a variety of local outdoor activities and skills workshops. Staff and volunteers also maintain over 1,500 miles of trails, support our conservation policy and research efforts, and work to get urban and at-risk youth outdoors.

History

"AMC is the nation's oldest outdoor recreation and conservation organization."

"The New Hampshire Chapter began as the Merrimack Valley Chapter. We're the third largest AMC chapter at 10,000 members."

"The Maine Appalachian Trail Club was formed June 18, 1935 with the continuing purpose of maintaining the trail." Today the club has added some hiker education and a group registration program to assist groups of hikers to not be crowded at campsites because other groups have chosen to camp there. "The (Appalachian) trail was completed in August 1937 when the Civilian Conservation Corps connected the ridge between Spaulding and Sugarloaf Mountains in Maine."*

On this warm January day, bare ground showed on much of the Wonderland Trail in Acadia National Park. Often into April, ice makes walking treacherous. Milt Gross photo.

Now that I've warmed my fingers and toes from all that ancient cross-country skiing by sitting here typing with a cup of coffee as a companion, I'll conclude my cross-country skiing, which happened two ways. One was that my faithful old wooden cross-country skis sold to me by a former employer and school superintendent met their end one day while we were living in Steuben. I had been on the way home and was clambering over a pile of downed limbs that were right in the way, when I heard a snap.

The rear end of one of my skis had gotten caught in the wood pile and snapped.

A few months later -- months that brought warmer weather and no snow -- I was walking in the woods and pulled my leg. That leg is still in the healing process.

I don't cross-country ski with broken skis and a leg not quite broken.

I do walk still, on trails when possible as long as they're not too steep and not covered with too much snow, and other places you walk.

Such as this morning, when I went out to put up the bird feeder, put sunflower seeds down for the squirrels (mostly fat this year) and wild turkeys, hang the suet cage, and take a crack at repairing the mailbox which fell off its wood frame yesterday during that nasty global-warming snow-sleet-rain storm.

The drive and yard this morning were frozen and crusty.

I didn't quite fall on the icy parts.

The man who plows for us will show up sometime this weekend, and spring will show up in about a month and a half.

I'm planning to stay indoors this weekend except to go buy a replacement thermometer for the one that was blown off its holder yesterday and broke when it landed on the icy porch floor.

I want to see that it actually gets warmer as the snow season slowly becomes the mud season.

* The material within quotation marks in the several paragraphs is from the websites of the Appalachian Mountain Club and the Maine Appalachian Trail Club." The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is the mother organization for the entire AT from Georgia to Maine, and local clubs in each of the states the AT traverses are members of it. ATC coordinates much of the individual clubs' activities.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2012