With blizzard-force winds whipping great clouds of snow across the frozen lake and waist-high drifts piled above 2 feet of still-accumulating powder, the only question was: Snowshoes or cross-country skis?

“Let’s do snowshoes,” I said over the phone this morning to my friend Bob Graham. “I think we’ll get bogged down trying to break trail on skis.”

An hour later (much of that time spent shoveling a path from the front door and out the driveway) Bob and I rendezvoused, along with his wife, Betsy and another friend, Mary Sommer.

“Look at the lake!” Mary exclaimed, referring to Long Pond, which divides Ledyard and North Stonington.

Icy blasts had carved frozen swirls “like icing on a cake,” and howling gusts created whiteouts.

“Looks like a scene from ‘Dr. Zhivago,’ I said, pulling on goggles and adjusting my balaclava.

Off we trudged, onto the barren, snow-covered ice.

Tuesday might have been a good day to hunker down by the wood stove with a mug of hot chocolate, but it was an even better day to strike out in the elements. After all, how often do you get to snowshoe in a blizzard?

As I’ve often reflected, there’s no such thing as bad weather – only inappropriate clothing – and all of us were suitably attired. The only gear I carelessly forgot to don were gaiters to keep snow from sifting over my boot tops. What was I thinking?

I also had worn single-layer hiking boots – though waterproof, not nearly as toasty as the double-layer, insulated plastic mountaineering boots I’ve taken as high as 20,000 feet in the Andes and once used to climb New Hampshire’s notorious Mt. Washington in sub-zero temperatures, blinding snow and 75-mph winds.

On those occasions I had worn super-gaiters purchased from a store owned by celebrated Everest climber Rick Wilcox, who advised me, “Nobody ever turned back from the summit because his feet were too warm.”

Anyway, due to my own dumb carelessness today my socks were soon soaked, but the nice thing about being out for only a couple hours as opposed to weeks on an expedition is that you can pretty much overcome discomfort knowing that you will be warm and dry before too long.

My only other minor miscue involved inadvertently stepping in some slush – water evidently discharged from a resident’s heating system had thawed a section of the pond – and within minutes ice formed on the crampon spikes beneath my left snowshoe, rendering it useless for gripping. By the end of our outing the chunk grew to about half the size of a cinder block and had me clumping around like Frankenstein’s monster.

No matter, we all had a blast traipsing over the lake and then up and down hilly trails on the western shore.

It’s nice to know you don’t have to venture off to the Andes, the Himalayas or even the White Mountains to experience icy intensity (without the altitude), even for a short foray.

Now if you’ll excuse me, the hot water for my cocoa is boiling.