Mid-winter arrives with some perfect snow

skiers rounding the turn
Originally uploaded by kenmores

The last few days have been some of the best skiing of the season. Fresh powder on a nice base has made the trails just about perfect – be they groomers or backcountry trails. I’ve spent a couple of nights skiing the woods under an almost full moon and today I tried to ski exclusively on the backcountry trails. Brilliant sunshine on an otherwise cold day. Not as cold as I expected mind you with nary a breath of wind so I found myself somewhat overdressed. Gonna have to work on my moisture management a little better. I started at P12 and climbed up the big hills to get warmed up. With such a beautiful day the parking lots were jammed but, now that most of the trail network is in prime shape, the crowds get swallowed up by the woods only a few km’s from the parking lots as everyone heads off to their own agendas for the day. Once on top of the ridgeline I skied from one trail to the next redlining what I could and enjoying the afternoon mostly alone in the woods. Lots of soft snow at every turn and the few people I did run across were all beaming – nuff said.

I debated stopping in to one of the huts but it was so nice out and I expected the huts to be crowded so instead I kept skiing along, taking whatever trail presented itself. Sadly I had to eventually head home so I pointed the skis back down trail 40 to my car. Climbing trail 40 is perfect on a cold day for warming up…. but when it’s time to head down, the trail is equally perfect for cooling you off. Two to three km of mostly fast downhill tends to scrub off any built up warmth you may have had and sadly – being overdressed - I had built up a little moisture in my layers as well. Suffice to say while I might not get into what happens when the Dew point relocates to a point within your polypro and fleece layers (save that for someone else’s blog) it’s not pretty. No fear though, once down the hill my car and dry layers were just steps away so I stripped off the icy layers and quickly put on some dry clothes for the drive home.

Clearly I'm not alone in loving the new snow...

Tomorrow is the XCOttawa duathalon and I’m once again headed out to marshal a corner or two. I’ll be sure to manage my layering system a little better so as not to freeze up at my post.