The past few days have been pretty close to perfect skiing in the park. Comfortable temperatures and fresh snow have made for some really nice skiing. Saturday, with a few inches of fresh snow down, last week’s hard, icy tracks had been transformed. Not to say that the icy tracks – with their infinite glide - aren’t enjoyable but the new snow is what it’s all about. Everything was groomed up nicely on Saturday so I chose to skate some of the staples of the park as well as getting onto the Camp Fortune race trails. The race trails are less used by park skiers but they offer some really nice twists and turns and have a nice rhythm to them. Granted they don’t go anywhere per se as you end up right back where you started but they’re still a lot of fun. Sunday brought a few more inches of fresh snow so I strapped on the classic skis and headed onto the smaller trails to take in some powder. Despite my late start I even got to break in a few of the tracks… but I missed out on first tracks of some of the more sweet lines – gotta set my alarm earlier. I spent 5 hours randomly roaming along the trails and - had I brought enough food and water - I might still be up there. Monday brought different conditions again. The trails were now skied in and pretty fast but the temperature had dropped (to -10 C not too bad really) but a stiff breeze had blown up making it pretty cold in the open. Bryan had taken the day off work so I met up with him at Western for lunch. I would suspect Western to be pretty quiet on a Monday lunchtime but today was “ski day” for some local high school and there were kids everywhere (along the trails, in the huts) enjoying the snow. Bryan had nabbed the last two seats in the hut so we managed to enjoy lunch amidst the din. We also managed to avoid the bulk of the kids on the trails in the afternoon thanks to the teacher who ANNOUNCED SEVERAL TIMES AT HIGH VOLUME their route for the rest of the day. From Western we skied out to the Ramparts before catching back on to Western trail and then along Ridge and back down to P7. Some of these trails were a first for Bryan so there was lots of added excitement at a few of the drops. Conditions are fast now that the trails have been skied in but there’s lots of soft snow on the side should one have to ditch so no worries.

Certainly a great few days on the trails and it makes all the bitter cold, dark nights of skiing in January worth it to get out and fully enjoy the trails in prime shape now. It also reminds me that the season is slowly approaching an end. Only another month of guaranteed good skiing and then…. Maybe a few days(a week? 2?) into April … base willing. Time to make sure I get all my ski plans (tracks to ski, places to go) in place before I have to coat the boards in storage wax and put them on the shelf for another year.

Have you skied Charlie's descente yet this year? Times running out!

Loppet Weekend

Sunday was Loppet morning and time for me to chase around the park, following the pack to see the race unfold. With a careful, time-tested strategy I can catch the racers using shortcuts on my skis and of course my car to leapfrog the racers and see the race unfold at various points. Always good fun and the day was shaping up to be a beauty. Today would be more driving/less skiing then the full course as they’d rerouted the course to all parkway skiing but I could always go for a ski after the races wrapped up. At the startline there was a bit of a nasty breeze blowing but the temperature was decidedly warmer than past years. The groomed trail was in excellent shape and looked to be particularly fast – it was bound to be a fast race. I positioned myself at “turn 1” for the start and the thundering herd bore down at the starter’s horn. I was lucky enough to be spot on for a crash in the pack –lucky for me but perhaps not so much for the two involved. That said it was only two racers that crashed amidst the melee of racers so they should count themselves lucky as the masses magically parted around them allowing the two downed skiers to spring back up and get on with their race. From the start line I sprinted down a horrifically icy track (ungroomed) to catch the leaders through the 5k mark before driving up into the park to watch them u-turn at Penguin for the first out and back portion of the parkway. From there I drove a little further up to MacKenzie King and skied down to the parkway to watch the race head out and then return from Champlain lookout. The lead pack looked strong and fast and I had to keep recalculating their expected times as they were always faster than I anticipated (race speed was 25k/hr for 53k!). The fast conditions meant solo skiing would be tough and instead packs of skiers drafted along – woe to the individuals who got caught off the back of a train as it would mean some hard chasing to get back on. After the bulk of the racers had gone by me and headed for the finish line I headed off to get a ski in but alas just a few hundred meters along my ski hit a gel pack on the trail… and it was like throwing out an anchor. My work with the Race Weekend has fostered a heavy dislike for gel packs and this didn’t do anything to improve my dim view of them. With a ski that was now collecting gobs of snow I opted to head back to the car and drive to the finish line and see what I could before driving home to watch the 500. Once that race was over I headed back to the park for an evening ski on freshly cleaned skis…. Being sure to steer clear of the parkways where the water stations were located. Lots of pictures of the loppet can be found here

Refreshed tracks
I opted to not take in the first day of the Gatineau Loppet (classic ski race day). I was a little put off by the organizers last minute decision to make the weekends races an all Parkway course rather than the excellent loop through the trails that they traditionally use. While I admit that we had some pretty warm, wet weather this past week and a hard, fast freeze following the rains, it seems to me that there was plenty of time to renovate the trails and get them in top shape for the race weekend…. But they opted against even trying. Seems the thought of a little hard work and perhaps some late nights was too off putting. I guess the organizers aren’t really keen to revive this once great event and are content to let it slowly reduce in size and stature to a little regional race rather than rebuild its reputation as the international event it once was…. Too bad. Instead I went up to Lac Phillippe and found…. Perfectly groomed tracks?!? If they can groom up the general trails to perfect condition in the back woods of the park, why can’t they get Ridge road and Burma prepared in time for the races…. Strange. I’ll go out tomorrow to watch the main event but with an “all Parkway” course it minimizes the number of points I can catch the racers so it won’t be the same. Still , it’s loppet weekend so I’ll take in what I can.

Feeling unhappy about the loppet I went for a ski around the Wakefield triangle. This is a great loop filled with all sorts of different terrain - steep climbs, old growth forests, farmer’s fields, lakes and streams. While I expected a hard fast trail – and this would normally make me lean towards skate skiing – I opted instead to classic ski. It’s not every weekend that you get professional waxing advice from ski techs who have spent days refining their advice. The recipe called for green glider which worked great…. but I won’t give the pros much credit for that. The icy transformed snow was fast and if I’d chosen to wax my skiis with peanut butter it probably would have given me good glide (and attracted many squirrels). The grip wax advice was more challenging however. Super binder klister heated in with a blue hard wax cover on top. I’ve never tried to put a hard wax over a klister but decided today was the day to try. The key is to apply the klister with a torch and then freeze the skis outside before applying the hard wax top coat and it proved to be straightforward. The combination proved a master stroke and was bullet proof. I skied for about 30k’s and don’t think I slipped once yet had perfect glide throughout the day. Any other hard wax combo I might have tried and I would have had to rewax time and time and time again on the trail so major props to the pros on their selection. Hope it worked out well for the racers. Post ski my mood had improved and I now have my camera bag ready for tomorrows races… off to catch what I can.

An Evening in the Park

Monday night Mike and Bryan had decided we were long overdue to pack in dinner to one of the huts and enjoy an evening ski. I probably ski more at night than I do during the day so the night ski wasn’t anything special but I haven’t stopped into the huts during my night skis for more than a quick chance to warm up. It’s been a few years since I packed in dinner so that was certainly going to be nice. I had Monday off so I packed up my dinner, stove and a few other accessories and headed up around 2:00 to get in a nice ski before meeting up with Bryan and Mike. Conditions were fast after the weekends brief thaw but the grooming rigs had been around the main trails munching up the ice and making it skiable. The backcountry trails on the otherhand will have to wait until we get some more snow as they were glassy and hard. The guys ditched work a little early and we soon hooked up on the Fortune parkway as the sun started to sink. After a quick pit (pint?) stop at Shilly Shally we rolled over to Huron lookout to take in the sunset but an incoming front system made the sunset somewhat disappointing.

From there it was a short hop back to Huron lodge to set up dinner. To my surprise we had it to ourselves for most of the evening. No worries, the fire needed a little stoking and we spread out a good feast with a baguette and a nice cheese to start, chili, panini, soup and even some chocolate with a few more pints to wash it all down. After a quality feed we all settled down for a bit of a rest to watch the fire. Finally another crew joined us in the hut (they for a birthday celebration) and we decided we had probably rested enough and it was time to get skiing and earn some of the calories. Along the trail there were some good opportunities for some moonlight shots as a full moon peeked its head out from behind some rolling clouds. Add to my list for gear to carry next time is a tripod to set up the camera as my long exposure shots didn’t do it justice. But there will be a full moon again I’m sure so I’ll get another chance… as there will most likely be another dinner in the park as this worked out well.

Mid winter ski
Saturday was supposed to be questionable weather. Starting cold and then ramping up to above zero temps and rain sometime in the afternoon. While I wasn’t CSMing this year I still felt eager to go out and do a big ski. With that in mind I loaded up relatively early and headed for P11 with a long loop ski in mind. Heading down the Discovery trail and Pine road I would climb up to Lusk Lake, continue on the abandoned (but well used) trail 10 to the firetower and then ski down Ridge road to the heart of the park and loop around to P11 once again. Starting out the groomed trail was in superb shape. Excellent snow had been freshly worked with a hard base. I made short work of the trail out to Lusk. Trail 10 by contrast is no longer acknowledged by the NCC but those of us that know and love it still ski it in year after year. Sadly today as I started up the steep climbs of the trail someone in front of me had decided it was too steep to ski up and had taken off their skis and walked up all the hills. This left the perfectly serviceable ski trail a mess of post holed footprints and inconsistent trenches where the offender had waded, sunk, clambered up the hill – Grrrr! As I was mostly climbing it was merely an inconvenience for me but had I chosen to loop the other way, descending would have been a minefield of tripping hazards to negotiate at speed. After topping out the main climb and crossing the upper (flatter) portion of the trail I came head on with a good sized group on snowshoes with skis on their backs. They were doing a similar ski as I was but opting out of skiing the most fun part (authors opinion!) – snowshoeing it instead. That said, all those snowshoes would help to compact down the postholes on the steeps so perhaps my timing was just a little off – c’est la guerre. From there back to Ridge road I had a nice hard base to ski on and made good time back to the groomed runs. A quick visit to the firetower and then I was off down Ridge road (also in excellent shape). The day was gray but the temperature while climbing remained below zero while I skied. For the most part I only rarely saw other skiers. I suppose with CSM’rs off… well, CSMing and loppeters tapering for next weekend’s races, the farther reaches of the park were left to me (and a few others of course). Just the rhythmic sound of my skis and the wind above me in the trees like a lost wave looking for a shore. Once back into the hub of the park at gossip corner the crowds reappeared. This is a nice loop. Apparently it’s a little long for the size of my water bottle (I ran dry at McKinstry) but that’s a minor correction of which I should know by now. Once home the temperature shot up and (I’m told) a little rain fell. I missed the rain though as I took a pre-bedtime nap… but it looks like more rain is in the forecast…. Downward slope of winter seems to be arriving.

Home
This past weekend held some excellent skiing. To be honest, after coming back from above zero weather on the west coast, it was hard to get excited about going out in the -20C Ottawa weather that welcomed me home. It took me a few days to finally don the extra layers and head out into the park and in the end I was glad I did as fresh snow had fallen and the trails were in excellent shape. On Saturday I had made some vague plans with Mike to meet at Lac Phillippe. I got a really late start so when I arrived at the lot he had already headed out. I chased hard but turns out I went down the wrong trail so I didn’t catch him. Rather we bumped into each other at the Taylor Lake Yurt so it worked out rather well. From there we broke trail across the Lake and up to the Pontiac lookout. Bluebird skys with just a little cold wind made for an excellent climb and an even better descent. Back at the Yurt we opted for the same trail I had skied up in the morning but no complaints as 55 is a beautiful little valley to ski down.

On Sunday some weather had moved in. In the morning it was reportedly freezing drizzle at -13C. How does that work? Who cares as the end result was all the trees were frosted with a light coating of… ummm, white stuff. No, not snow and not ice either but rather a strange combination of the two. Looked great whatever it was. I toured around the backcountry trails linking one together with another. Tried hard to minimize my time on the groomed runs but occasionally I popped out and was “forced” to ski in perfect tracks before picking up another powder trail. Another great day out on the trails and glad I’m home

West Coast skiing
Seems I’m falling behind in my blog posts so I’ll have to make a couple of quick posts to catch up. After the World Cup ski races out west I had a few days to get in some skiing. Would I like to do some downhill?, backcountry?, groomed XC?… yes, yes, yes! Was there any chance I could haul all the necessary gear with me for a short week of skiing… No. As a result I opted to take ski gear for just groomed XC and decided to do a little tour of some of the cross country areas I’d heard lots about. Brief setback when the airlines promptly lost my ski bag but they soon found it and delivered it to me while the racing was going on. I spent a day and a half at Whistler Olympic Park skiing the competitive trails as well as the public trails. The competitive trails actually only took a short time to explore as previously posted (there isn’t much to them). The public trails on the other hand were really nicely laid out and had a nice rhythm to them. They snake through a creek valley rolling through old growth Douglas Fir and cedar forests. I can surely say that they truly know how to grow trees on the west coast as everything I skied through dwarfed me. In talking with a friend who lives in Van they also know how to grow tree out there… but I’m not sure what he was referring to as I saw many, many trees. Must be a local thing.

Morning in the "Norwegian Woods" and the groomed corduroy is all mine
After a visit with my brother’s family (got to help out with math homework and enjoy French horn practice) I headed east to Kelowna and took a couple of days skiing at Silver Star and Telemark. Some really nice trails here. Silver Star (well nearby Sovereign Lake actually) hosted a World Cup ski race a few years back and they continue to maintain a great set of trails. The trails are cut through a beautiful lodgepole pine forest and again… are pretty huge compared to the woods back east. While the Okanagan valley was filled with low level clouds the ski areas are high up so there was significant sunshine to enjoy with the undercast in the valley below. Of course high up makes it an 02 challenge to the lowland skier that I am but setting the pace back a little meant the thin air wasn’t a big issue… where did I have to be in a hurry anyway?

Cloudy in the valley... but sunny up high
Telemark is a smaller community based ski area that has some excellent trails. I skied one evening there and another day but they weren’t quite high enough to be out of the clouds (rather they were IN the cloud) so most of my time there was not conducive to picture taking. That said they have a fun set of trails that are well worth the visit. Finally, prior to catching my plane home I skied at Cyprus. Not much to say about this. It’s conveniently located to downtown Van and had excellently groomed trails but it’s pretty two dimensional. Climb up or ski down… almost a downhill venue in the woods. Still and all, a good time trying out some of BC’s groomed trail networks. The weather was stupendous with most days hovering around +3C and not a cloud in the sky. Time well spent and I’ll look forward my next chance to ski out west as there are a few more places I’d like to explore. A random collection of photos can be found here.