It is now good walking on the river.

January 20.

P. M. — Up river to Hollowell place. 

I see the blue between the cakes of snow cast out in making a path, in the triangular recesses, though it is pretty cold, but the sky is completely overcast. 

It is now good walking on the river, for, though there has been no thaw since the snow came, a great part of it has been converted into snow ice by sinking the old ice beneath the water, and the crust of the rest is stronger than in the fields, because the snow is so shallow and has been so moist. 

The river is thus an advantage as a highway, not only in summer and when the ice is bare in the winter, but even when the snow lies very deep in the fields. It is invaluable to the walker, being now not only the most interesting, but, excepting the narrow and unpleasant track in the highways, the only practicable route. 

The snow never lies so deep over it as elsewhere, and, if deep, it sinks the ice and is soon converted into snow ice to a great extent, beside being blown out of the river valley. Neither is it drifted here. Here, where you cannot walk at all in the summer, is better walking than elsewhere in the winter.

January 20, 2015

But what a different aspect the river’s brim now from what it wears in summer! I do not this moment hear an insect hum, nor see a bird, nor a flower. That museum of animal and vegetable life, a meadow, is now reduced to a uniform level of white snow, with only half a dozen kinds of shrubs and weeds rising here and there above it. 

Nut Meadow Brook is open in the river meadow, but not into the river. It is remarkable that the short strip in the middle below the Island yesterday should be the only open place between Hunt’s Bridge and Hubbard’s, at least, -—-probably as far as Lee’s. 

The river has been frozen solidly ever since the 7th, and that small open strip of yesterday (about one rod wide and in middle) was probably not more than a day or two old. It is very rarely closed, I suspect, in all places more than two weeks at a time. Ere long it wears its way up to the light, and its blue artery again appears here and there. 

In one place close to the river, where the forget-me-not grows, that springy place under the bank just above the railroad bridge, the snow is quite melted and the bare ground and flattened weeds exposed for four or five feet. 

A downy woodpecker without red on head the only bird seen in this walk. I stand within twelve feet.

H. D. Thoreu, Journal, January 20, 1856

It is now good walking on the river... See December 13, 1859 ("My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer. It is the walk peculiar to winter, and now first I take it. I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me, just along the edge of the button- bushes, where not even he can go in the summer. We both turn our steps hither at the same time."); February 19, 1854 ("I incline to walk now in swamps and on the river and ponds, where I cannot walk in summer. “); March 4, 1852 ("Now I take that walk along the river highway and the meadow. The river is frozen solidly, and I do not have to look out for openings.”). See also July 10, 1852 (“I make quite an excursion up and down the river in the water, a fluvial, a water walk. It seems the properest highway for this weather."); July 11, 1852 ("Now is the time for meadow walking")

In one place close to the river, where the forget-me-not grows, that springy place under the bank just above the railroad bridge, the snow is quite melted See January 19, 1856 (“The only open place in the river between Hunt’s Bridge and the railroad bridge is a small space against Merrick’s pasture just below the Rock”); January 24, 1856 (“You may walk anywhere on the river now. Even the open space against Merrick’s, below the Rock, has been closed again”); January 26, 1856 (“ [The river is not open], excepting the small space against Merrick’s below the Rock (now closed), since January 7th, when it closed at the Hubbard Bath, or nearly three weeks, —a long time, methinks, for it to be frozen so solidly”); February 3, 1856 (River still tight at Merrick’s); February 22, 1856 ([T]he river is still perfectly closed (as it has been for many weeks), both against Merrick’s and in the Assabet . . . I am surprised that the warm weather within ten days has not caused the river to open at Merrick’s, but it was too thick to be melted); February 27, 1856 (Am surprised to see how the ice lasts on the river. It but just begins to be open for a foot or two at Merrick’s, and you see the motion of the stream. It has been tight even there (and of course everywhere else on the main stream …That is, we may say that the river has been frozen solidly for seven weeks.); March 2, 1856 ("The opening in the river at Merrick’s is now increased to ten feet in width in some places. "); March 20, 1856 ("The river has just begun to open at Hubbard’s Bend. It has been closed there since January 7th, i. e. ten weeks and a half."); March 19, 1856 ("I noticed on the 18th that springy spot on the shore just above the railroad bridge, by the ash, which for a month has been bare for two or three feet, now enlarged to eight or ten feet in diameter.") See also January 28. 1853 ("These two or three have been the coldest days of the winter, and the river is generally closed."); December 19, 1854 ("Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere."); January 20, 1857 ("The river has been frozen everywhere except at the very few swiftest places since about December 18th, and everywhere since about January 1st."); December 26, 1858 ("I walk over the meadow above railroad bridge, where the withered grass rises above the ice, the river being low. I notice that water has oozed out over the edge of this ice or next the meadow’s edge on the west, not having come from the river but evidently from springs in the bank")   See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out

A downy woodpecker without red on head the only bird seen in this walk. I stand within twelve feet. See January 8, 1854 ("Stood within a rod of a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. How curious and exciting the blood-red spot on its hindhead !"): February 2, 1854 ("I stole up within five or six feet of a pitch pine behind which a downy woodpecker was pecking. From time to time he hopped round to the side and observed me without fear. They are very confident birds, not easily scared, but incline to keep the other side of the bough to you, perhaps") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Downy Woodpecker