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Signs of life stir on a cold, windy night TOM VENESKY OUTDOORS

Sunday February 14, 2010 | 12:00 AM

The snow that slammed the area on Wednesday gave reason for many people to dust off their snowmobiles and head outside.

I did the same thing, except I dusted off my snowshoes.

For the last two years the snowshoes collected cobwebs as each winter lacked a suitable snowfall to strap them on and head out into the nighttime winter landscape.

But when more than 12 inches of snow fell last week, I couldn’t wait to break a trail across the clean, white sheet.

Snowshoes aren’t the easiest things to walk on. When there are only a few inches of snow on the ground, it’s actually easier to get around without them. But when the white stuff piles up to nearly knee-height, snowshoes do a remarkable job at keeping you on the surface. Without them, plowing through deep snow feels like walking through quicksand.

While walking above the snow is obviously easier than walking through it, snowshoes provide for a great workout as well. If you try to walk with a normal stride while wearing snowshoes you’ll end up face first in the snow. Instead, each step has to be lifted high by using your thigh muscles and snapping your foot up at the same time. This allows the front and back of the snowshoe to remain level, so when you step down the entire shoe “stamps” down on the snow, distributing your weight and keeping you afloat.

After two years of nonuse, I had to briefly teach myself how to walk on snowshoes again as I set out across a barren field. Fifty yards later I had the technique down and was on my way into the winter night. The snow was still falling and the wind picked up. The frozen crystals stung my face and I knew there wouldn’t be any wildlife out in the open fields on a night like this. I angled toward a hedgerow that separated two fields and found some relief from the wind thanks to the thick stand of sassafras and oaks that lined the stonewall.

It was here that I also found a few small signs of life on a cold, windy night.

A thick grapevine tangle that, over time, wove through the branches of an oak tree and eventually killed it, had toppled onto the stonewall years ago. Briars poked their way through the mess of vines and limbs, forming a thick mass that most of the falling snow couldn’t penetrate.

With snowshoes on, I gently stepped onto the stonewall and peered inside the tangle.

Despite the dark sky, the fresh snow was bright enough that I could make out rabbit tracks maneuvering through the vines. The trail of tracks led to the edge of the tangle, where the rabbit gnawed on the base of a thin birch tree, and then back into the vines to a hole in the stonewall. The snow around the entrance was worn and packed, indicating that the rabbit, or rabbits, had been pretty active inside the shelter of the tangle while the snow piled up.

I left the stonewall for easier walking across the flat, open field and saw one more sign of life before the wind swept away the evidence. A field mouse had emerged from the deep snow and hopped across the surface, leaving a set of horseshoe-shaped tracks before burrowing under the white stuff again.

As the wind picked up, I set out across the field, leaving a set of snowshoe tracks next to those of the field mouse. For a brief moment, they were the only two signs of life on the desolate winter landscape. That is until the wind erased the tracks and any evidence that something had stirred on a cold, winter night.