Yesterday we made it to the pond for the first time since early January. We have tried several times but the snow depths have been just deep enough to make walking, even with crampon-attached boots, difficult. Ironically, the snow depths of three-to-six inches have been insufficient for snow-machiners, whose travels, in prior years, have packed down our local trails enough to allow dogs and people to traverse without snow-shoes. I have ventured out a couple times with snow-shoes but this mode of travel is not compatible with a healthy, assertive, eighty-pound K-9 escort.