part social, part physical, part otherworldly, snowshoe hikes offer a reprieve from the cold, dark winter

The Seacoast may be a great dining, music and art destination, but for those who live here, when the weekend stretches out before us, the buzz often turns in a distinctly non-urban direction.

In couples and families, solo and with pets, we travel in our cars to roadside trailheads, from Mt. Agamenticus to Vaughan Woods to Kingman Farm, in every season. Winter is no exception. Maybe it even feels more urgent.

It’s not enough to know the state parks and beaches that are listed in guidebooks. We quiz each other about undiscovered sites and local secrets, in search of ever more acreage where someone can disappear for an hour or so into a landscape, a place that at first feels empty but then fills with what lives there—birds, beavers, rabbits, deer, and silence. Someplace not too far from home. Maybe where I can cross-country ski? Or bring my dog?

Consider the Great Works Regional Land Trust your in-the-know friend, and their winter hikes to be a surefire cure for cabin fever. The group leads land conservation efforts in the Berwicks, Wells, Ogunquit and Eliot, Maine, and the winter hike series takes explorers to hidden-in-plain-sight areas like “Beaver Dam Heath,” Punkintown Road and Tuckahoe Preserve, and explores local legends, like the “Wonders of the Tatnic,” which include mysteriously named geographical landmarks like Big Bump, Orris Falls, the Gorge, and Baker’s Oven.

The first tour of the winter recently took place at Tuckahoe Preserve in Berwick, a wetland that is unnavigable during the summer and, traveling by car, would be an easily bypassed field on the side of the road.

But explored in person, it is transformed. Leaving the cars, pavement and utility wires of Hubbard Road behind, a group of 25 people on snowshoes and skis moves into the crisp winter-white landscape as if into a painting. The sky is a blue dome framing the scene. Stark saplings seized by overnight snow glitter in the morning light as the temperature of 13 degrees holds crystals fast to bare branches. Clad in fur and pads, dogs leap ahead and drop back, stop to wait, bury snouts in the snow, ready to play. Cold, fresh and dense, the snow doesn’t sparkle today, but lies like a padded blanket of white, quilted by arcs of animal tracks.

It’s not heaven, though, simply a slice of nature offered for conservation amid our ever-expanding sprawl. Michael Wright, group leader and founding board member of Great Works Regional Land Trust, guides the group along past stump dumps and test wells. The land here is scarred. Originally cleared to grow turf, the project encroached on protected wetlands, and Wright explains that it’s now conserved with the land trust as part of a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency. The wells monitor the water level below the surface, and the land waits to be reclaimed by natural succession. 

The public is welcome to explore these 108 acres, but that’s not true of all the land the trust conserves. That’s partly because of the high cost of trail creation and maintenance, but also because sometimes the best public benefit is to leave rare or endangered plants or animals, or fragile ecosystems, untouched. That said, they are striving to provide a public place in each of their six towns, and the Tuckahoe Preserve is a likely candidate for Berwick.

The group crosses the field and reaches the woods, where there is no cleared trail between evergreens and hardwoods, just a path that someone before us has made to the river. By now, the group is starting to break into clumps, trading stories of how children are doing in school this year, how much fun it is to play “Rock Band,” and discussing other great places to ski this close to home. The air temperature is unchanged, but people are warming up. Coats are unzipped, scarves loosened.

At the Salmon Falls River, between steep banks covered in evergreens and birches, everyone pauses, a little breathless. The river is flowing, its dark current bearing fistfuls of clear, rough winter ice downstream. Ice shelves of white, gray and yellow reach out in sinuous curves from along each shore. The water between is deep and fast and dark, the opposite of the white fields where this trip started.

The group is warmed up and sheltered among snow-laden evergreen branches, taking in the scene and comparing notes on snowshoe brands. Part social, part physical, part otherworldly, the walk seems to offer a reprieve from whatever it is about winter that ails us—the long hours of darkness, the shoulder-hunching cold, the lack of greenery, or the urge to hibernate, isolated in our dens.

From here, the group breaks trail heading downstream, ducking and snapping branches. There are no animals in sight today, but birdsong fills the middle distance, and beavers have been here. Sharp, raw tips of saplings are stumpy spikes in the snow. Someone passes along a backpack of cookies. At the end of the line of people, a trail of tracks shows that we have been here, too. 

More hikes

All told, Great Works Regional Land Trust offers approximately 15 hikes per year.

After the ski/snowshoe season comes exploration of vernal pools in mid-spring, then foliage hikes up Bauneg Mountain, to Orris Falls, and to York Pond in the fall. Summer offerings might include a butterfly walk at the Savage Preserve and a paddle on Bauneg Beg pond in North Berwick.

The suggested donation for winter hikes is $5 per person, $10 donation per family. Call the office at 603-646-3604 to register.

Feb. 6
EXPLORE FOUR OF THE SEVEN ‘WONDERS OF THE TATNIC’
The Tatnic region of Wells, South Berwick and Ogunquit has a unique geology and natural history that has resulted in unusual features such as Big Bump, Orris Falls, the Gorge and Baker’s Oven that are the subject of much folklore. Great Works Regional Land Trust continues its winter hike series when it meets at Orris Falls Conservation Area in South Berwick on Saturday at 9 a.m. Call 207-646-3604 to register.

Feb. 13
SKI/SNOWSHOE BEAVER DAM HEATH
Explore the frozen beauty of this rare Atlantic White Cedar swamp and learn more about the natural history of this unique and biologically significant region on Saturday, Feb. 13 (snow date Feb. 14), 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Picnic lunches encouraged. Call 207-646-3604 to register.

Feb. 20
SKI/SNOWSHOE PUNKINTOWN ROAD TO YORK POND
This popular trek will leave Brixham Road in South Berwick to venture down Old Punkintown Road to the headwaters of the York River at York Pond, Saturday, Feb. 20, at 9 a.m. Call 207-646-3604 to register.