A Snowy Trip to Bent Tree

With schools closed on January 20 for snow, Rod, Jeff and Mark decided to see if they could get to Bent Tree to see it in the snow.

We headed out in the orange VW with chains, but got stopped at Jasper because Cove Road was closed. We actually had a good time at the motel, building a snowman in the snowy front yard of the motel and having a snowball fight. After dark, we watched people from Jasper down in the road having a snowball fight and enjoying the snow. After spending the night in Jasper, we headed out to try to go to Bent Tree by the Grandview Road.

Mark slides down the beginning of Grandview Road on a traffic sign that had fallen. Not a very good sled, but it was fun trying.

This steep hill on the way to the house was our greatest challenge of the morning. We walked back down to the bottom of this hill to look at our tracks. The right tracks of the pairs are the front tires, and the broader left tracks are those of the back tires which were spinning all the way up the hill, even with the chains. Straight up the hill above the turn are the ice falls that we became so fond of. Below is the view of the tracks looking down that hill.

Mark and Jeff examine what appears to be fox footprints along the middle of the road leading to our house. This was just about a hundred yards short of our driveway.

The orange VW with chains had done a good job of getting us through the snow, although it was tricky coming up the steep hill. We stopped here to explore the snowy road a bit.

This was our first view of the house in the snow.

Jeff and Mark work at moving a limb that has fallen across the frozen driveway.

I decided it was wiser not to try to bring the VW up the driveway, so here we look down on it from the house across the frozen terrain. Beyond the car you can see the turns of Buckskull Court going down the hill.

We climbed up the steep hill behind the house and were at this point looking down on the house across the snowy hillside.

The boys on the frozen road down near the Stancil house late in the afternoon. In the snow it was easy to pick out the fallen chestnut logs that gave Chestnut Cove Trail its name.

We stayed around long enough to see a memorable sunset in the snow.

The color of the sunset grew deeper and it was quite unique to see the sunset over the snowy road. We finally called an end to this adventure because I wanted to get the car down the steep hill before it got completely dark.

Though I was nervous the whole way about taking my two young sons on this potentially dangerous journey, it turned out to be one of our most memorable trips to Bent Tree.