Lacey Middlestead is a Montana native and freelance writer currently living in Helena, Mont. She loves meeting new people and helping share their stories. When she’s not busy writing articles for newspapers like the Independent Record and Helena Vigilante, she can usually be found indulging in her second greatest passion–playing in the Montana wilderness. She loves skiing and snowmobiling in the winter and four wheeling, hiking, boating, and riding dirt bikes in the summer.

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Being the daughter of a man who owned a powersports dealership for over 30 years, I was naturally born and raised a motorhead. But, on occasion, I find myself needing those quiet moments out in nature without the sound of an engine thrumming underneath me. So this past weekend, I traded in my 155” track and 2 stroke snowmobile engine for snowshoe crampons and the sheer ingenuity of my own lungs to propel me.

One of the beautiful things about living in Montana during a solid winter season is that you can often drive a mere 20 minutes to find hip deep or greater snow to play in. My boyfriend and I headed for the top of MacDonald Pass for some snowshoeing last Sunday as it is usually deserted and affords plenty of snow.

When we reached the top of the pass, we pulled off and parked on the side of the highway. As we strapped on our snowshoes, we noticed two ladies plodding along in their snowshoes back to their vehicle. Smiles stretched across both of their faces and made me anxious to begin my own hike.

Snowshoeing is peaceful, but man is it ever hard work. The first time I tried it I had this disillusion that it would be like Jesus walking on water and I would just skim gracefully across the snow barely making a dent in its surface. This is so not how snowshoeing is. While snowshoes do elevate you and make walking in deep snow easier, you still have to make an effort and trudge your way through. If you don’t snowshoe often, it can be terribly awkward. My boyfriend was dressed in head to toe brown Carhart gear and I told him he looked like a newborn deer learning to walk. He didn’t appreciate this comment very much but I felt it was fairly creative metaphor. He also didn’t think it was funny that I chose to let him break the trail while I followed in his footsteps. And what interesting footprints snowshoes make. A casual observer might mistake them for the remnants of some rectangular-footed snow beast gallivanting about in the mountains.

Snow is one of my favorite things in the world, but when you whiz by it on a snowmobile or downhill skiis, you miss some of the details about it that make it so amazing. As I walked along, I noticed long ripples in the snow like desert sand gets from the wind. The sun was high in the sky that day and illuminated every twinkling crystal on the ground. The only noises around me were the occasional rustle of wind through the trees, the crunch, swish, crunch swish sound of my snowshoes, and my labored breathing that synchronized with my steps. The feeling of isolation that encompassed the area was refreshing and calming. I began to fantasize that I was walking alone through some undiscovered “white” desert somewhere.

E. E. Cummings wrote that “The snow doesn’t give a soft, white damn whom it touches.” Snow truly falls upon the earth indiscriminately and let’s anyone play in it that wants to. I think that’s one of the reasons I love it so much. I found that quote popping into my head as I flopped backwards into the untouched snow to make a snow angel. No matter how old I get, making snow angels still puts a smile on my face. Trying to stand back up from my snow angel sprawl in snowshoes, however, put an even bigger smile on my face.

I spend every winter frolicking about in the snow in any number of ways, but snowshoeing is the one activity that forces me to slow down and appreciate the snow for all of its little splendors. It was another beautiful and blessed day in Montana for me.