Cold Outdoors Can Be Enjoyed With Right Gear

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STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Americans up and down the East Coast are enduring bitter cold. It's gone a little bit beyond what we like to football weather. Temperatures in upstate New York plummeted to 35 below zero, as Arctic air from Canada menaced the northeast. In New York City, officials doubled the number of vans that normally are sent out to help the homeless. And Amtrak suspended service from New York City to Albany, saying extreme cold interrupted signals and switches.

The weather is hurting winter businesses. It's even been too cold for skiers. Many are staying away from the slopes, according to reports from Maine.

North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann set out on his snowshoes yesterday to get a taste Of the winter weather and sent this audio postcard from the Champlain Valley in New York.

(Soundbite of crunching footsteps)

BRIAN MANN: I'm back in the woods now, under towering white pines. And down the sleep slope of this little esker here, I can see the frozen brook - kind of a white vein cutting through the woods. And that's what I'm going to follow out to Lake Champlain.

(Soundbite of crunching footsteps)

MANN: One of the joys of days like this is that if you have the right gear, you can really be outdoors and really enjoy this cold which transforms everything. There's kind of a different sort of stillness. And even the snow takes on this dry crunchy texture that tells you that it's really, really cold.

(Soundbite of crunching footsteps)

MANN: So I'm on the brook now, walking over the ice. Even when it's this cold out, there can be leads and flaws. Getting your feet wet when it's 20 below zero is no picnic.

I'm passing a set of coyote tracks - he's also following the ice. And right here, there's actually a tiny patch of open water surrounded by dense little bird tracks. And this is where the birds have been pecking open a hole where they can drink.

(Soundbite of chirping birds)

MANN: One thing that's pretty great out here is seeing just how much life goes on here when it's this cold. On this day, I've seen chickadees and grey jays and blue jays.

I've come out onto the surface of Lake Champlain. It's just this vast almost perfectly plain desert of white, framed in this cove where I'm standing by white pines on the two points. And then the Green Mountains are visible off in the east, and a beautiful ice fog laying in over some of the southern bays of the lake - absolutely stunning.

For NPR News, I'm Brian Mann in Westport, New York.

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