AUGUSTA — Central Mainers on Sunday finally got a chance to get out and enjoy the snow they had spent the past several days shoveling.
The annual Table Tour at Viles Arboretum off Hospital Street drew about 150 people who walked, skied and snowshoed a 2-mile loop through the woods highlighted by culinary delights that included turkey with the fixins’, Mexican food and other treats.
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“It gives people a nice workout, but it’s not too much,” said Mark DesMeules, the Arboretum’s executive director. “You certainly don’t come back hungry.”
Snow has been in short supply in recent years, but with about 3 feet falling since Monday, that certainly was not the case this year. DesMeules said the snow bounty proved a siren’s call to those who love the outdoors.
“There are lot of skiers who come out of the woodwork when there’s good snow,” DesMeules said.
The four tables along the route were loaded with soup, turkey and Mexican food. There even was a game stew provided by the folks at historic Old Fort Western, who dressed up in 18th-century attire.
Back at the welcome center, participants dined on an array of desserts while listening to the slick banjo picking of Professor Smartypants.
“We liked the turkey,” said Lara Walsh, of Hallowell, who completed the tour with her husband, Bryan Murphy, and two children, Sam Murphy, 4, and 8-year-old Isaac Murphy. “They’re pretty excited for desert.”
DesMeules said there was about an even split between the number of people who used snowshoes and those who used cross-country skis to complete the tour.
“We just walked,” DesMeules said. “It was a lot of work.”
The tour is a fundraiser for the arboretum, a 224-acre nature preserve that includes fields, forests, wetlands and botanical collections.
“It’s also designed to introduce people who have never been here before to the arboretum,” DesMeules said. He said about 30 percent of those who showed up were first-time visitors. A couple even signed up for a membership.
Several area restaurants and businesses donated food to the tour, which DesMeules said gets a lot of local support.
“We also do a lot of our own cooking,” he said.
The snow was a boon for the event, but it also proved a challenge. The trails were groomed by snowmobile, but even machines designed to go in snow can get bogged down.
“It was a big job to groom,” DesMeules said. “With 2 feet of powder, it’s easy to get a snowmobile stuck.”
Organizers this year tried using gas grills in addition to chafing dishes to keep the food warm, which was no easy task with temperatures hovering in the teens. The grills did not work as well as hoped, DesMeules said.
“Every year we learn a little something new,” he said. The biggest complaint, always, is if the food is cold. Thankfully, everything was hot.”
Everything, that is, except Dennis Martineau, of Augusta, who walked the trail with his friend.
“It was a little tough,” Martineau said. “It was an awakening.”
Craig Crosby — 621-5642
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