[Journal for December 25, 2013; Lower Range Pond after an ice storm]. It’s Christmas Day. Dallas and I are on our way to Lewiston Maine to attend a family party. We stop at Range (pronounced “rang”) Ponds State Park in Poland Maine, arriving an hour or so before sunset. This park is just a fifteen minute drive from Lewiston and we have hiked here many times before. The afternoon is clear, with temperatures a little below freezing. The ground has a thin layer of icy snow; we wear snowshoes for traction. An ice storm earlier in the week has left a rind of ice on all the trees and bushes, which are now beautifully lit by the sun.

We first walk down to a wetland, which is separated from the lake proper by a causeway. It consists of low islands of blueberry bushes separated by now-iced-over stretches of open, shallow water. A beaver lodge has appeared in it since our last visit and some of the vegetation around the shore has been cropped by beaver.

We then walk along the lakeshore as far as the flank of the esker, a glacial ridge that forms a peninsula in the lake. We then turn around and head back. Dallas takes the direct route through the woods, by I walk along the lake shore as far as the swim beach. I pass many animal tracks – coyote, fox, deer and squirrel – in snow-covered parts of the lake. The ice-encrusted grass and bushes along the lakeshore are lit by the late afternoon sun and are very beautiful. I bushwhack back through the woods, roughly paralleling the park access road. Branches of bushes and trees are bowed over and lower to the ground than usual, making my passage difficult.

About an hour.