Jan. 27, 1855. Yesterday's driving easterly snow-storm turned to sleet in the evening, and then to rain, and this morning it is clear and pretty cold, the wind westerly, the snow settled to three or four inches on a level, with a frozen crust and some water beneath in many places. ….
P. M. Up meadow to Cliffs and Walden road.
A cold, cutting southwesterly wind. The crust bears where the snow is very shallow, but lets you through to water in many places on the meadow. ….
Some ice organ-pipes at the Cliffs. They appear to be formed of successive rings about half an inch thick and diameter lessening with more or less regularity to the point. Sometimes the point split in two. Then the rocks are incased with ice under which water flows, thin sheets of rippling water frozen as it flowed, and, with the sun, again apparently thawing beneath and giving room to a new sheet of water, for under the south side of the rocks it melts almost every day.
I came upon a fox's track under the north end of the Cliffs and followed it. It was made last night, after the sleet and probably the rain was over, before it froze; ….
As I went through the woods toward the railroad, the sun setting, there were many small violet-colored, i.e. lilac-tinted, clouds scattered along the otherwise clear western horizon.
…. I came upon the track of a woodchopper, who had gone to his work early this morning across Fair Haven Pond. …. As I took the back track on his trail, comparing his foot and stride with mine, I was startled to detect a slight aberration, as it were sliding in his tread, or as if he had occasionally stopped and made a fresh impress not exactly coincident with the first. In short, I discovered ere long that he had had a companion; … to save his strength in this long walk to his work through the crusty snow, had stepped with more or less precision in the tracks of his predecessor. The snow was three or four inches deep.
-H.D.T.
Jan. 27, 2021.
It is not until 4 p.m. when I am able to get away to the woods; by this point of the day the well-loved Fairhaven Trail is riddled with tracks of people, dogs and fat-tire bikes within the 3 inches of snow that fell last night. Now in the upper 30s, the snow is soggy with a dappled look from globular drops of melting snow from branches above. I remark at the beauty of lines of snow that form a stripe along one side of tree trunks, which lean just enough to provide the needed friction for the snow to hang on. The water on the river is glassy smooth.
At the bottom of Fairhaven Cliffs, I find and scramble up to a large set of ice organ-pipes exactly as Thoreau described. Up close the interconnected icicles display the successive rings of daily growth, and nearby the rocky cliff shows a thin layer of ice frozen over and adjacent to a running trickle of water down the rock.
On a more remote side trail on-route up the steep, slippery way to the cliffs, I follow in the footprints of what appear to be two persons and a dog; based on their differing quality and slushy appearance, the tracks appear to have been made at intervening times, one set distinct and the other more vague as if one person was slipping and sliding with each step.
On the cliffs, the views of the sky above to the southwest, with a mixture of gray and peach-colored clouds surrounding a patch of pale blue sky, are magnificent. Perhaps even grander is the view further to the direct west, where a blue Mount Wachusett sits in the middle of wide thin line of orange along the horizon with multitudes of layers of differently toned blueish white clouds above.
On my descent from the cliffs, I hear the call of a great-horned howl. I rest and listen for a few minutes, feeling a million miles away from my everyday worries. As I finish my descent and turn north around the base of the hill to Walden and the tracks, my accompanying new friend continues to call, growing louder as I move closer toward it, but eventually stops. In the fading light, I find my way near Andromeda Ponds and along a path parallel to the tracks toward the trailhead. Along the way, I pop out to the tracks, but see no sign of sunset, now well past its peak, except for a tinge of pink in the eastern sky over Walden.
As I exit to my car, a full moon, half shrouded in clouds, shines through a screen of thin branches.
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