It was early in the season and although the snow was deep, it was loose and fluffy, gently covering the scrubby bush high on the Cape Breton Highlands.  A friend and I had determined to snowshoe across the highlands and down to my home on the shore.  What seemed like a good plan at the outset soon turned into a painful and dangerous nightmare of continually breaking through the thin icy crust into the deep loose snow around the bushes we could not see.