Out into the snow I went for a brief snowshoeing excursion at Sleepy Hollow State Park in beautiful, exotic Laingsburg, MI. It excites the soul just to think about it.
I hadn’t visited Sleepy Hollow since last fall, before hunting season. Too many stories of hunting accident make me leery of venturing into a state park where hunters lurk, and I just don’t look good in a bright orange hat, so I stuck to the Ingham county parks.
I had the park to myself and I followed the paths for half the time, and walked in the deeper snow beside the paths for the other half. Really, what’s the point of wearing snowshoes if you aren’t going to walk in deeper snow once in a while? But this was the first time I had worn them this winter – we haven’t had a lot of snow here in lower Michigan – and I didn’t want to wear myself out too much.
I have a pair of starter Tubbs snowshoes. They are among the cheaper ones I found. I didn’t want to invest much until I knew that I enjoyed snowshoeing. Which I do, I just don’t do it much yet. When I make more trips, then I’ll look at a better set. I hadn’t actually intended to ever buy snowshoes, but an incident the year before with an unpleasant wintertime walk in knee-deep snow changed my attitude.
I spent almost two hours walking around the quiet trails, enjoying the aversion most people have to hiking in the cold weather. Sometimes human nature works to my advantage. And as a bonus, if you’re looking for a peaceful campground, there are plenty of spaces available.
