There’s nothing so sublime as the near silent swish-swishing of skis through the thick, powdery snow of a moonlit forest. That’s something I discovered halfway through high school, when a group of friends and I stepped out into the bone-chilling cold of a clear, still Southern Tier midnight, strapped on cross-country skis and struck out into the woods. These woods were familiar to us (we often camped out in them, road mountain bikes over their trails and fished in the trout brook that runs through them), but the thick blanket of snow and darkness transformed the place into a fairytale. The black and white world we found ourselves in was washed in moonlight, lending it the otherworldly light of a Thomas Kinkade painting. As we skied—along the edge of a ravine, beneath alternating black evergreen canopies and between rows of hardwoods, across fields and over frozen ponds—a change came over us. The silence of snow and the darkness of night heightened our senses, and it narrowed our focus to the task at-hand: moving forward, moving fluidly. In that situation, as I’ve learned on many subsequent outings, you almost try to become a part of the night: your mind clears out the inane thoughts of the day-to-day, and you begin to tap the primordial beast that Jack London was always invoking. Only when we stopped on one of the frozen ponds and laid out, flat on our backs, to look at the stars, did our minds fill up again with thoughts of life, the world outside of the woods and our tiny place in it.

It’s moments like that, out in nature and entirely peaceful, that keep me looking forward each year to not just to the first snow, but to the first big snow. Besides cross-country skiing, there are plenty of other positive ways to commune with Mother Nature. Here are a few that don’t involve (or they shouldn’t, at least) shoveling your walk or scraping the ice off of your car.

X-C Skiing/Snowshoeing

The mainstream argues that the only terrain worth Nordic skiing is one where there’s no hill to ski down. I disagree with that statement, but if it were true then Buffalo would be a perfect place for the sport. It’s not quite pancake flat, but it is telling that the highest point in the city is an old, covered-over refuse pile in Tifft Farm Nature Preserve. That said, the 264-acre preserve itself is good for skiing or snowshoeing in, with miles of trails through woods and marshlands, as well as nice views of the clusters of ice-fishing huts that will soon sprout up along the outer harbor. The preserve offers group snowshoeing tours on a regular basis throughout the winter for a nominal fee (pre-registration required, call 896-5200, ext. 338). Any of the city parks will get the job done, and Delaware Park’s open expanses—particularly on the golf course, where the drifts pile high—are where I most often find ski tracks. Outside of the city, there are plenty of options. Most Erie County Parks are chock full of trails, although Chestnut Ridge and Sprague Brook are my personal favorites. The expansive Art Roscoe Ski Touring Area in Allegany State Park has over 35 miles of groomed trails spanning an 800-foot elevation range. Made up, in part, by old, wandering narrow gauge railroad beds, there are many breaks in the old growth hardwood forest that offer great views of the surrounding Allegany foothills. Also, the Buffalo Hike Club (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buffalo_hike_club) and the ADK Mountain Club’s Niagara Frontier Chapter (www.akd.org) frequently organize snowshoe and Nordic ski trips throughout the winter.

Downhill Skiing/Snowboarding

There’s little to say here that you don’t already know, I suppose. The best downhill in the area is at Holiday Valley in Ellicottville, ranked fifth in the East by Ski Magazine. At 1,000 acres and with a 700-foot vertical drop, it’s about five times higher than Kissing Bridge in Colden, the much closer alternative, and has twice as many runs. A better kept secret, however, is E-ville’s other resort, Holimont. The private resort, with stats similar to Holiday’s (they’re right next to each other, for crying out loud) is open to the public only on weekdays, so members can enjoy crowd-free skiing all weekend long. Once its expansive Canfield expansion is complete, Holimont will easily rival Holiday Valley in overall skiing quality. The cheapest way to ski, of course, is to walk/hike/snowshoe back up the hill through the woods. After all, what you’re paying for at a ski lodge technically isn’t the use of the hills, but rather the ride up them on a ski lift (hence “lift ticket”). It’s a great hour-long workout that makes that three minutes of freewheeling downhill all the more rewarding. I guess the old maxim is true: “The best things in life don’t come easy.”

Ice Skating

Fountain Plaza still reigns as the best local venue for outdoor skating. If you have your own skates, though, there are plenty of places along Lake Erie where you can shovel off a rink in mid-winter and have plenty of room for a full-on game of ice hockey (just ask Brian Higgins) or to perform triple axels to your heart’s content. Long ago, Hoyt Lake in Delaware Park was used all winter long for public ice skating. These days, however, it’s only open to skaters a few days a year for Winterfest. If you’re looking for lots of skating in varied urban locales, Toronto has no fewer than 49 outdoor public skating rinks scattered throughout the city.

Sledding

Thankfully, not all winter activities require lots of gear, finesse and agility; some simply require you to sit down and hang on. Sledding is just such a democratic pastime. It also doesn’t require that much of a hill, so city dwellers need not despair. The most obvious place is in a park, and Delaware Park has two suitable hills near Hoyt Lake. One is the famous Shakespeare Hill behind Marcy Casino, and the other is the hill near Michelangelo’s David. I grew up surrounded by hills, so it shocked me the first few times I saw scads of parents sending their kids, sometimes at breakneck speeds, down the artificial hills created by Thruway off-ramps and interchanges. Still, it’s time-honored tradition for kids from Cheektowaga and Amherst to meet at the Alps of Thruway off-ramps, the I-90/I-290 Interchange, to test their met+tle and, perhaps, play chicken. I’ve always thought that the giant sand piles just south of the Skyway would work well for sledding. They’re probably the tallest, steepest hills in the city. And, finally, I can’t recommend this, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that a colleague of mine casually mentioned how great sledding in Forest Lawn Cemetery can be. He and some buddies once joyfully whiled away a Sunday afternoon drinking beers and dodging granite headstones. But after some contemplation he said, “I don’t think they approve of it.” And then, “There are some good hills, though.” But his most useful piece of advice was this gem: “The key is finding a clear shot.” A clear shot, indeed.

Sleigh Riding

If old-fashioned is your thing, head south to Mansfield Coach & Cutter, just 10 minutes outside of Ellicottville. There, on a 100-acre tract of land, they offer the genuine sleigh ride experience. Powerful Percheron draft horses pull your sleigh for 50 minutes along numerous trails winding through thick hardwood forests and over open fields. Along the way, you stop at a carriage house for hot chocolate and cookies. They provide the blanket and sleigh bells, as well as a variety of sleighs to choose from that includes antiques from the Victorian era. Torch-lit nighttime rides are also available, for the romantically inclined. Make a weekend of it by staying at the bed and breakfast (reasonably priced, including a continental breakfast) and bringing your skis to hit the nearby slopes in Ellicottville. Call 938-6315 for additional information.

Ice Fishing

A final option is to join the “frostbite fraternity,” a common name given to ice fishermen. Buffalo’s Small Boat Harbor is one of the area’s most trusted ice fishing locales—every year it gets reliable ice cover—teeming with perch and smelt, and occasionally someone hooks a walleye or northern pike. Silver Lake, Chautauqua Lake, Cuba Lake and Conesus Lake are also bountiful, reliable ice fishing locations. The area’s rivers and streams are not as common for ice fishing, for the obvious reason that moving water doesn’t freeze as readily as stillwater. Ice fishing gear is cheap. An ice fishing jig is pretty much a two-foot long fishing pole with a simple reel (which is sufficient because fish don’t put up a good fight when they’re in ice water). You can buy one from a fishing shop for a couple of bucks, and some people make their own. Common bait is grubs or minnows, which can be purchased at any local bait shop. To cut through the ice, most folks use an ice auger, which is basically a big, hand-powered drill (they also make them gas-powered now).

One of the biggest concerns with ice fishing is safety, and the biggest safety concern is naturally the thickness of the ice. For a rough guide, four inches is safe for foot travel, five inches for snowmobiles and eight to 12 for cars or small trucks. That said, the simplest advice is to not be the first one on the ice. If nobody’s on the ice and there are no recent footprints, don’t go on it. As they say, “Ice testers are found in the spring!”

If you’ve never gone before, you may want to consider doing a chartered ice fishing trip before you buy the gear. (Though a rusting ice auger looks neat on the mantle, it’s worthless unless you have good “the one that got away” stories to tell the grandkids.) Unfortunately, there are no ice fishing charters in WNY anymore. There are charters on Oneida Lake near Syracuse and on Lake Simcoe, about 35 miles north of Toronto.