Finding Where The Snow Falls Gently

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit several New England ski resorts. Since it was still early, it was no surprise that none of the areas had more than a dusting of snow. However, there was an excitement in the air because the nights were holding the cold chill that foreshadows the firing up of the snowmaking equipment.

While I was walking around, huge generators were being checked out and tested. Smoking, sputtering, and coughing out the dust of summer, one-by-one the generators roared to life. Without the dampening effect of a blanket of snow, the machines could be heard all over the mountain and down into the valleys. Everyone within fifty miles was put on notice that snow was coming and people were making it.

Two days later I visited a ski area in New York, where the preparations for the arrival of snow was in sharp contrast to the hustle and noise associated with making snow in the mountains. At Lapland Lake Cross Country Ski and Vacation Center owners Olavi and Ann Hirvonen know the snow will come, just as it has for the 28 years Lapland Lake has been open. When it does comes it will fall silently and softly – about 11 feet of it, like the last 5 seasons averaged.

Ann told me the loons had winged south very early this year and Olavi said the reindeer he keeps at the center had already grown out their winter coats - both sure signs that we can look for an early Adirondack winter.

I promised myself and my daughter that this season we would put more time on touring skis and Lapland Lake is one of several well known areas where I intend to take her. As I walked around, without feeling the earth shaking from generators, and despite the fact there was no hissing of snowmaking guns being tested, I had the distinct feeling we would be skiing here sooner than we will be skiing on the mountains. I had almost forgotten the silence and the solitude of nature, and that when the snow comes here it will be a whisper in the forest.

_{Image © Lapland Lake Cross Country Ski and Vacation Center}