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