Moonlight Snowshoeing - Featherstonehaugh State Forest

Tomorrow night's full moon is billed as the brightest to come in 2009, with the moon at perigee and also full. It's expected to appear 14% bigger and 30% brighter than average, and should be the 3rd brightest in 25 years. But tomorrow night, it will be snowing heavily and tonight was clear, so...

Seven of us tramped around Featherstonehaugh State Forest by moonlight, and bright it was. We only had to use lights a couple of times when the direction of the trail became unclear. Nobody had skied the ski trail since the last snowfall, and my snowshoe tracks from yesterday were all but obliterated as well. The only clue to the location of the trail, aside from the occasional trail marker, was a shallow depression where the ski tracks had been. We strayed a couple of times, but managed to get back on track for a little over an hour's walk. Trees glistened with ice in the moonlight, and the whole scene was somewhat surreal. This was one of the better moonlight trips I've had there. Unfortunately, past attempts to capture it in a photo have failed miserably, so no pictures here.

Afterwards, we were invited to the nearby house of one of the couples for hot chocolate and conversation. It was a good evening.