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The problem with the January thaw is that it doesn’t happen in March.

Or, given Baker County’s sometimes disagreeable climate, in April or May.

Balmy weather in January is ersatz.

The weather equivalent of getting a Christmas gift in October — a gift you have to give back in December.

I don’t trust the January thaw.

Even when it continues for more than a few days, as was the case this year, the thaw can’t be counted on.

February, like as not, will unleash a barrage of cold fronts that reveal the thaw for the cruel interlude that it was.

And if February fritters away its abbreviated opportunity, March, with its full contingent of days, will ensure that winter does not yield to spring without objection.

March, I am convinced, recognizes, as keenly as a tiger detects its hapless prey creeping along a jungle trail, the instant a baseball or tennis player takes a single step outdoors with a mitt or racket in hand.

The result is an immediate attack, albeit with snow flurries and a face-freezing north wind rather than with teeth and claws.

In both cases the only salvation is stout shelter.

Even a cynic isn’t completely immune to the lure of a mid-winter thaw, though.

I was taking my usual afternoon walk not long ago and for the first time in several weeks I wasn’t wearing my wool stocking cap.

(The garment was, of course, tucked into my coat pocket — suspicion ever prevails over naivete, at least when it comes to weather.)

For just a moment, as a shaft of sunlight slanted across my path and the breeze, already gentle, held its breath, I nearly succumbed.

I could almost believe, in that instant of comfort and tranquility, that this winter would defy convention.

I thought of hiking trails free of snow.

Of mountain meadows engorged with a riot of wildflowers.

Of green grass, soft against my bare feet in my backyard.

But the daydream, as all such pleasant diversions must, evaporated.

And it did so even before I trudged through a mound of half-congealed slush, a dirt- and gravel-encrusted reminder of the week or so of arctic weather in mid January.

I don’t mean to imply that a January thaw lacks any worthwhile attributes.

I appreciate the respite, however brief, from having to negotiate icy sidewalks and streets.

Walking on surfaces with the approximate traction of a popsicle can be at least as fatiguing mentally as it is physically. A pedestrian in such conditions must be ever vigilant, like a hiker traversing country with many shrubs and trees, any of which could conceal a venomous snake or ravenous carnivore.

Not even a geometry teacher appreciates subtle slope angles as much as a person on foot who is approaching a curb cut slathered in ice or snow. I think of these as fracture zones, and I slink around them whenever I can, as an inexperienced mountain climber instinctively veers as far as possible from the edge of an exposed ledge or traverse.

When I can’t avoid one of these perilous spots I adopt a sort of gingerly gait, hunched over and stepping as softly as I can, much as a soldier might do who realizes he has wandered into a minefield.

I have watched cats walk in a similar way when they encounter snow, although I suspect the felines, which are famously agile, don’t fear slipping but merely disdain, in the manner unique to their kind, the coldness on their paws.

Anyway I enjoyed the more carefree excursions once the mild south breezes and rain showers had sent the snow trickling into storm drains.

And with hindsight it seems to me that I have a greater fondness for the frigid period earlier in January simply because it didn’t linger.

I relish all sorts of inclement weather, revel in the rarity when the temperature plunges well below zero or soars toward and past 100 degrees.

But snow makes a mess.

Particularly when it turns to ice.

And although there is a certain satisfaction in finishing a walk with icicles dangling from your eyelashes and your nostrils clenched in that peculiar way, the experience typically does not improve with repetition.

I offer, then, a muted thank you to the January thaw.

I wish only that I could capture some of its mildness and let it loose on one of those April afternoons that, no matter what thermometers claim, is indubitably colder than anything winter could conjure.