Winter is officially over, but I’m not ready to say goodbye. I plan to hang on by my toes ’til there’s nothing left but mud. With the fading snow on my mind, I drove up to Nederland on the first day of spring to try out my new snowshoes. (They’re Crescent Moons, made here in Boulder, and ideally suited to slushy conditions at 9,500 feet.)

Snowshoeing in the spring is the perfect sport for introspective types. You can spend all day in the quiet woods, surrounded by the permanence of the mountains. Everything seems so solid. But as the day goes on, the snow vanishes from under your feet, reminding you of its evanescence.

Burns had it right, in his poem “Tam o’ Shanter.”

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white–then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis [rays],
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.