Morning comes bright and deceptively calm, the kind of cold that sharpens everything—the air, the light, even the silence.

Overnight, the world was rewritten.

The road, the yards, the fences—everything now lies under a smooth, untouched blanket of snow. It’s the kind of “virgin” landscape that feels temporary the moment you see it, as if you’ve arrived just before something changes. The canyon walls stand steady in the distance, dusted and layered, watching over it all like they’ve seen this same scene a thousand times before.

But down here, it feels new.

There are no plows yet. No clean edges. No defined lanes.

Just a road that exists more in memory than in sight.

And so the guessing begins.

A pair of tire tracks cuts cautiously through the white, wavering just slightly as whoever came first tried to remember exactly where the road runs. Another set follows, correcting here, drifting there, each driver adding their own interpretation. It’s not reckless—it’s careful, almost respectful. No one wants to be the one who misjudges the shoulder and ends up buried in more than just snow.

For now, it works.

The path becomes clearer with each pass, a shared agreement forming without words.

But off to the side, the untouched snow waits.

You can almost hear it calling.

Because this isn’t just a road today—it’s an invitation.

Soon enough, someone will step out with skis. Cross-country, most likely. They’ll pause at the edge, looking out over that perfect surface, knowing full well what comes next. There’s always that brief hesitation—just a second—before the first push forward.

And then—

the first track.

A clean line drawn across the blank page. Not destruction, not really. More like participation. A way of saying, I was here too.

More tracks will follow. Some straight and confident, others wandering. The snow will lose its perfection, but gain something else instead—evidence of movement, of presence, of life continuing even in the quiet.

By afternoon, the road will be more certain. By evening, maybe the plows will come through and impose order again.

But for this moment—this bright, cold, uncertain morning—Horny Hollow Trail belongs to guesswork and first tracks.

And there’s something kind of perfect about that.