Lusk Lake Cabin
Originally uploaded by kenmores

A little late in my posting but… Sunday morning I got up pretty slowly. Things were pretty stiff and sore after Saturday’s big hike. That said, the spring skiing was bound to be sublime so I felt compelled to get suited up and hit the trails. Okay, pulling on my ski gear was another exercise in discomfort but I finally got underway with a pair of skis and a lunch in my pack. Spring skiing is all about timing. Go too early and the overnight freeze renders the tracks frozen solid ice. Go too late and the warm sun turns the trails into slush. With my slow start I was a little off in my timing but overall not too bad. Decided to head up to Lac Phillippe. I knew there would be less people up there and, with the warming sun, there would be fewer skis to turn the softening tracks into a pile of slop. True enough the lot was ¾ full when I pulled in at 11. The trails were still reasonably firm with the parts exposed to full sun starting to get slushy so I skied up to Lusk lake which is mostly a shady trail. Found the ski rack pretty full but rather strangely there were two families inside the hut clustered around the wood stove…. What the?!? It was about +8C and sunny! More room on the front porch for me I guess so I took up my station and had half my lunch while basking in the sun. Inside the kids were screeching and hollering and having a great time. Fun for them but it kind of broke the wilderness silence for me so I packed up, stripped down to my t-shirt and skied off to do a bit of a circumnavigation of Lusk Lake. With the firm base, the crust cruising was excellent and I was able to lap the lake in short order before returning to the main trail to descend off to Taylor lake where I found a nice picnic bench (no screaming kids) and enjoyed the second half of my lunch and my last Blackberry Wheat (now available year round!! but only in the states :( ) before having a snooze in the sun. Time to roll home and by then (about 2:30pm) the tracks were decaying rapidly into a slush fest. The last couple of hills while not too big certainly took their toll and after yesterdays hike and today’s ski I was glad to get to my car for the drive home. Beautiful weekend indeed. Unfortunately I discovered mid trail that my camera has had a critical breakdown so this is an old pic of the Lusk Lake cabin (it still looks the same ;-). You’ll just have to imagine how nice the day was for your self…