Early morning commuter heading in to check on the huts
Headed up to the park early this morning to get in a ski. Don’t usually go for the early morning skis until later in the season but I’d missed my chance to ski Thursday night so decided to make the early trip up. Grey, drizzly skies greeted me as I pulled into P10 at quarter to 7. Grim weather but I had seen the groomers rolling along the Doldrums so I knew I would have fresh tracks. Indeed all the primary trails seemed to be freshly groomed so the skiing was quite nice. In spite of the +2C weather (and rain falling) the tracks were actually firming up nicly with the cold supplied by the snowpack beneath them. This made the skating fast but the classic tracks looked to be glazing over and might prove to be icy. I skied up along the Parkway to the lookouts but had to use my imagination as thick fog blocked any view. No stunning sunrise either as the dark, gloomy grey brightened only slightly to light, gloomy grey as the sun came up. A quick loop around 1A and B before heading down Burma for the trip home. In the woods the conditions were a little bit tougher than the parkways. The warm temperatures were bringing the last of the ice on the branches down and the delicate sound of breaking "glass" filled the air as the ice dropped from above. I probably was less than an hour behind the groomer riding the fresh corduroy but the trails had already built up a good layer of icy chunks and bits of branches making the skiing a little more like riding ball bearings. It was manageable on skate skis but I would think the classic tracks would fill up fast and be a bit of a pain. Once I shot out onto the parkway it was apparent that the wider open parkway skiing might be the ticket for today. Far less debris and nice new tracks Could be the answer for the weekend which shows more of the same weather ahead. Maybe we can get rid of the last of the ice covered branch debris with this warm weather and get back to some more wintry weather in the days to come.
Tough to make out the ice chunks but lots of little twigs on the foggy Burma road (and the ice chunks are there!)
2 comments:
Love the morning shot. I was out later in the day and it was raining ice shards. Luckily I didn't get hit.
I got hit a couple of times by falling ice but suffered no ill effects (other than the sudden surprise of the impact). They seemed to be light enough to not do any serious damage (or maybe I was just lucky). Either way, looks like most of the ice has fallen now so we should be free of that hazard for now.
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