In spring, it's skis or snowshoes

Spring in some places means the hellebore is in bloom.

In North Idaho it means you can walk on snow.

It’s a fickle business though, because despite not having the dexterity of language often ascribed to the Inuit when it comes to cold weather precipitation, we know a couple things about the white stuff.

When it has a crust in spring you can walk on it, or post hole through it. The first is better.

Postholing is the business of stepping on what appears a sturdy piece of snow only to break through when pressing your weight onto the rind under your boot.

You make a hole, and sink in.

And then you do it again, over and over.

You should always wear boots for this, although in our fair cities many people in work shoes can be seen postholing through spring snow on unshoveled city sidewalks with the forlorn look of unfed owls.

I knew a man who postholed through mountain snow for a mile in spring to get a better look at what he thought was nearer his pickup. He had expected to walk on top of the snow to reach the scree field which led to the petroglyphs on the rock outcrops overlooking the highway, but like the ancient drawings, distance and time took their toll and he spent the better part of the day slowly fading. He was exhausted and wet when he got back to the cab.

Postholing sucks your energy and lets snow inside the tops of your boots unless you wear gaiters.

Which are wonderful.

But who thinks ahead?

Cross country skiers who slide lightly on top of the snow, often keep gaiters as part of their gear. Snowshoers do as well, but postholers, a myopic and enthusiastic bunch, who might if luck strikes find part of an energy bar and an apple core at the bottom of their day pack, don’t.

Skiers usually stick to the open ground where the gale force winds that turn North Idaho highways into snow-drifting catastrophes will in short order transform open fields into solid surfaces, not unlike the winter lakes used by ice boats to sail on the skates of outriggers.

Getting blown across a mile of open field on skis in spring isn’t talked about much, but it’s relished by its practitioners with the spiritual ferocity often reserved for outer edge endeavors like bog snorkeling, chess boxing or extreme ironing.

The concept was learned unintentionally by people gleeful to be literally blown away. The same fields can be snowshoed, but more slowly.

Snowshoes are made for the woods where the snow may be equally hard-rined with the additional obstacles of brush that can be stepped on, or over, while skis ungainly in close quarters get snagged up.

The first snowshoes I strapped on under pac boots were bear paws, and we made trails through the swamp in back of the house until May when the snow became grainy diamonds and disappeared.

The shoes were loaned by a neighbor and a few years later I got my own modified bearpaws, longer, with rawhide web and ash frames. Walking through the woods quietly, without the clank of aluminum frames, allowed spying on critters — as us backwoods cretons like to call the animals that we love to see and hunt. Snow shoes were developed by native forest dwellers such as the Algonquins, for the same purpose: To be sneaky and conserve energy.

There are a lot of things to see out there in the woods in winter without the pressure to see everything at once. But because March is the time of most mortality for our game herds, keeping distance is obligatory. The bulk of fawns and calves that don’t make it through winter die in spring’s deep and hard-crusted snow when their reserves are shot.

Getting too close and pushing them around the backcountry doesn’t help.

Which shouldn’t prevent anyone from being out there huffing through the snow, or over it, during these tawny days of spring.

Awareness is key. And don’t forget to pack a lunch.