Visiting my S24O site in the snow

Yesterday was a not-too-cold winter day (maximum temperature of 2C)

immediatley after a period of snowfall, so I stepped away from my

computer for a bit and headed to the forest where I did my first S24O

bicycle camping trip in September of last year[1]. I'm not confident

cycling in this kind of weather, but it's only maybe a 20 minute walk

from the nearest bus stop, which makes it accessible pretty much

year-round. This was certainly not my first visit to that forest

since the S24O, but my first for a while and my first in winter. Last

spring I really enjoyed taking advantage of similar conditions to see

my nearest national park blanketed in snow without having to deal with

serious cold[2], so I was excited to be be able to repeat the

experience closer to home.

The freshly fallen snow, although not very deep at all, made it

impossible to avoid leaving very clear tracks, and because of this I

was able to tell, to my surprise, that I was the first person of the

day to visit any of the areas I went to, even though I didn't arrive

until shortly after noon. I feel really lucky to have such

comparatively quick and easy access to such a relatively high degree

of solitude in a natural environment. The forest in question is fast

becoming one of my favourite places to visit, as I think it hits the

perfect trade-off between ease of access and

size/solitude/remoteness.

It was a short trip and I didn't bring much with me, just a shoulder

bag with the essentials: a reflecive foam insulated sitting mat, a

thermos full of coffee, some saaristolaisleipä (a kind of semi-sweet

Finnish dark bread that I really like), a book (Murakami's Wind-up

Bird Chronicle which I've just about finished) and a camera (Canon

AE-1). I wandered for a bit, taking a few photos, then sat and read

and ate and drank for a bit. Because it was slightly above freezing,

the tree were dripping snowmelt, but not very much because it was

overcast and not windy. Nevertheless I ended up sitting in a clearing

to avoid getting dripped on too much. Next time I do this I might

bring a tarp and setup a little shelter amongst the trees, that could

be quite cozy. I occasionally wonder about bringing a laptop with me

and hacking on some projects in the forest. Different parts of me

consider this either deeply compelling or vaguely blasphemous, and I'm

not sure which part to listen to.

[1] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/my-first-s24o.txt

[2] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/woods-recap.txt