Powder day!!

Pretty hard blowing snow at the lookout - time to move on
Wow, I must say that - when I mentioned how badly I was looking forword to a powder day in my last post, I didn't expect it to arrive so quickly. If I realized I had any influence at all I should have pined for world peace or lottery winnings.... but instead I got a good dump of snow - and I'll take it! To be fair, we didn't really get all that much snow  (maybe 4 or 5 inches) but in this sparse winter where snow seems to be a rare commodity, it did wonders to improve the skiing in the park. I took Friday afternoon off to go out - mid storm - and enjoy the maelstrom first hand. Skied a lot of the bc trails in the park which almost instantly were transformed from crusty tracks to a carpet of light fluff. A little amazed to realize that this was the first real ski on my wideboards this season and I had forgotten a little of the technique... but it came to me pretty quickly and the conditions were pretty forgiving. Skied for 3 hours before I started to get pretty cold. It was actually pretty close to 0C but with all the snow thumping down I was pretty much soaked through. Despite a little hesitation I opted to head for home with a final swoosh down to the car... and then a modest shovelling to get the car out.

(Yes, Mike ;) A fresh blanket of snow makes us all happy!

Over the bridge and through the woods... on untracked powder
Saturday I figured I still had a chance for some fresh tracks if I went alllll the way out to the Eardley escarpment trailhead. Not really an official parking lot, it marks the end of trail 56 which is the most northerly trail in the park. It's also a shortcut into Lac Richard yurt and sure enough I met the group staying at the yurt on the road waiting for some friends who would join them for a second night. They would be the only people I would see all day. After I skied up to the yurt in their tracks, the snow was unbroken and I had my work cut out for me for the rest of the day (until I turned around). I made a blistering pace of 3km/hr on my way out which is pretty much walking pace for those keeping track. Of course walking down a sidewalk doesn't compare to plowing through 10 - 20 cm of untracked snow not to mention climbing a pretty significant ridge. It would of course all pay off when I looped back and got to speed along my broken track and enjoy the swooping descents. This was also my first chance to see the repair work done to the trail after the washouts last summer. Some might recall the giant "elephant traps" left behind by the summer rains which I posted back in October. Well it was good to see almost all of them were repaired. The trail was smooth and even and excellent skiing. The small "ditches" that didn't get fixed were small in comaprison and easy to ski around. They probably ran out of time to get to them... so perhaps next season they'll be fixed up. Spent a little time at the (unofficial) lookout enjoying the view and making a few turns before heading for home.
Enjoying the "Pontiac" view

Skiing home on hard fought tracks
Glad Mother nature finally checked her calender and realized we'd had enough rain/freezing rain events and were long past due for a little powder snowstorm
Even the trees seem happier

A springlike Gloppet weekend

This past weekend was a beautiful one for some spring skiing. Cold nights and warm days… and it all seems to have arrived far too early for mid February. Got out Friday night for a long ski and felt really awful through most of it. By Saturday morning it was pretty clear I had a virus attacking my system and it was looking grim if I would enjoy any of the nice weather. Not sure what I did right but I attacked the virus whole heartedly with lots of liquids and a little couch surfing and by Saturday evening my white blood cells had staged an excellent defense and the virus was packing its bags (Yaaa white blood cells!). Felt good enough that by Saturday night I got out with Bryan and his family to snowshoe to Herridge lodge for a little dinner by candlelight. When I say snowshoe, I really mean a hike as the trail was a solid block ice (with some chewed up snow on the surface for traction) and the snowshoes stayed in the car. Clearly we weren’t the only ones with the same idea and it turned into a bit of a freak show. At Herridge a local ski club was having a family outing and that meant a dozen little kids running around screaming and yelling in and out of the cabin all night. Not exactly the peaceful atmosphere we were after. Add to that a group hiking out of the nearby Healey shelter (that we had the pleasure of hiking out with...) had clearly had a few too many and the hike(stumble) out to P15 for them was a raucous one… but so it goes some nights.

Dinner at Herridge (courtesy BvT)
Sunday dawned crisp but with the promise of a warm day ahead. A beautiful day for the Loppet and I had to check my calendar twice to make sure I had the right day. Usually Loppet morning is bitterly cold but sure enough the crowds had amassed at the start line… and so did I with my pack of camera gear to follow the race through my carefully crafted plan of skiing(and a little driving) to catch the racers at 4 or 5 spots through the course. All went to plan for the most part (apart from one short cut that probably was a lot longer than I anticipated)and a good race was had. My last location up near Huron lodge is the high point of the course and I still haven’t figured out how to get from there to the finish line before the racers (perhaps a helicopter?) but fortunately the sprint finish is caught on camera and I managed to enjoy a couple of video clips of the final dash for the line. My photo set can be found here.

The mad scramble at the start

The lead quartet with 15k to go - ready to sort out the podium
Finally Monday I got out and did a bit of touring on the BC trails. I am woefully behind in my “redlining” project this year. I keep waiting for the perfect powder day to tour the classic steep and deep trails… but it never seems to arrive. On this day the ungroomed trails were in decent shape. Better than I expected to be honest and I’d forgotten how nice it can be to ski off the groomed runs. I stuck to the greens and blues though as the crusty surface probably requires more... ummm, talent than I have when you get to some of the steep chutes. It was a perfect blue sky day so that never hurts. Sadly there’s too much of this warm weather in the forecast. There’s a faint glimmer of hope that some snow storms will welcome us into March, but barring that it could be a very early spring indeed.

Warm bench sitting season seems to be here too soon...

Canadian Ski Marathon 2012

Well another ski marathon weekend has come and gone. Despite the weatherman’s best efforts to scare us – with calls for a flash freeze Friday night, and bitter cold winds all weekend – it turned out to be a fabulous winter weekend. Just the kind of weather you might like to go skiing in! Last post I joked “how did I manage to get signed up again?”… but of course most know full well it’s not a difficult “sale” to convince me to sign up - always a fun event. This year Pete wanted to get out and experience the event first hand and see what it was all about. He hadn’t classic skied since high school(been a while...) and didn’t really work out what he would be skiing on till a week or two before the event – but he was game to try! I convinced him to go for the “Tourer” option which would let us ski as many sections as we wanted (could?) without feeling obliged to try and ski it all. He could use this year as a learning experience and then build on it for future attempts – tuning up his training, or equipment, perhaps his game day feeding strategy – whatever. We’d still get a good ski in on a unique set of trails.
Winding through the hills
So Saturday dawned a little frosty but overall not too bad. I got up early and headed out to take a few shots of the Coureur des Bois near the start. Always a neat sight to see as they head off into the woods (predawn) with the long line of headlamps twinkling through the woods marking the trail. After chasing them around a bit it was time to race to the parking lot to meet up with Pete and climb on our bus. A little confusion meant we missed our first bus but it didn’t amount to much as the second one arrived pretty much spot on the section “open” time so we got off the warm bus and started skiing almost immediately - perfect timing!
The Coureur des Bois head out before dawn
"Snaking" their way down to a little roadway underpass
The tracks were really nice this year – perfectly set from the packed snow I showed in my last post. We did get a dusting of new snow overnight but not enough to slow the glide down too badly. The snow was – as I predicted – quite abrasive but my wax combo (loosely based on the wax guru’s advice) of a green klister covered by carrot hard wax and a thin layer of fluoro blue(nice bonus tip there kept the debris out of my wax!) worked great all day. I did a little touch up at the checkpoints only because I was carrying wax and not so much because I needed to. Shortly after we started, the sun came out and it turned into a brilliantly sunny day. Only a few short stretches where we turned our noses into the cold wind so overall very comfortable skiing. There were a few stretches in the second section we skied that were a little ugly. A gritty section along the highway and a few steep chutes with just enough snow to cover the frozen mud come to mind… but that’s par for the course for the CSM trail. The tough bits add to the challenge and make the perfect tracks across field and dale all the sweeter.
Perfect tracks along the lakeside
Somewhere through the long 20k section the proverbial “wheels” fell off for Pete and he decided he’d had enough fun for the day. I think we skied more this weekend then he skied all season so no surprise perhaps. So while he climbed onto the bus back to the cars, I opted to ski on one more section as I was still feeling good… and I was keen to get a close up look at the construction work for the new highway which will hopefully open next year. The last section included a couple of long slow climbs to the highway before we launched down through the Montebello golf links to the finish of day one at the Chateau Montebello. Good fun and all in all I felt good after 50k of skiing.
The last slow climb of day 1 - up to and then under the new highway
Day two we both woke a little stiff and sore (not a surprise) so we opted for the easier last two sections of the course that took us from Lac Carling down to the finish line in Lachute. The trail wound its way through the Canadian shield past cottage communities all locked up for the winter and across a couple of frozen lakes to the first checkpoint. Starting early on these sections meant we got (almost) first tracks on the fresh tracksetting. It made for easy skiing on another beautiful day. The last couple of descents came relatively quickly and before we knew it we were in Lachute being cheered home by… well, there were one or two people around. They told us we were “too fast” and not expected for another ½ hour… a comment that I think Pete will carry to his grave ;) Collecting my “Bronze Tourer” pin, for completing 5 sections, the “pin distribution lady” – reading from her “Rules sheet” - asked to confirm that I was indeed over 17 (and perhaps not some young kid scamming the wrong prize!)… a comment I may take to my grave!
Past the cottage and onto the lake...
“But Kenmore… what about this "Equine pacer" I heard rumors about”.

Indeed, I’ve saved that for last. The CSM trail winds through forest and farmers fields, sugarbushes and small country villages. A few kilometers after the start of our first section we came upon a small farm yard. I’ve seen this a few times before - the arrival of the skiers gets the farm animals excited. The horses in particular like to run up and down the paddock to check out these strange new creatures that have arrived in their quiet little farms. So it was no surprise that we saw the 10 or so horses(and a few cows) running around as the skiers slid by. I stopped and took a picture and then raced on to catch up to Pete, thinking nothing more of it. As we started to leave the farm behind and settle in to a bit of a climb, I heard a loud metallic twang from behind me. Looking around I discovered one of the horses – overwrought with excitement - had leapt (perhaps broken?) the fence and was now happily tearing up the trail behind me!
TRACK!!!
A few thoughts ran through my head (foremost of which was some Pamplona scenario) but it quickly became clear that she meant no harm. This parade was too good for her to miss and she wanted to join in! As she caught up to us she slowed down beside each skier, checked them out... and then powered on to catch the next person in line. After passing me, she roared up the rather steep hill ahead and left me for dust. I’ve often heard that the “golds” are the draught horses of the event but this was ridiculous. Sadly she did do a little damage to the trail, post holing as she went along, but the poor thing hadn’t time to strap on her skis much less get them waxed so I suppose all is forgiven. A few km ahead was an army water stop and I’m sure they got quite a shock when – expecting a horde of skiers to hand water to they got a large horse trotting down the trail at them. But they took it in stride and got her off the track – “No number, no bandit participants ma’am ” and she was directed to the side. Hopefully she got home after her busy and exciting day in the woods. Hate for the farmer to be put off from the event and deny permission to the organizers to cross his farm. Clearly not something one could have anticipated.
Time for a break
So as always the CSM provided a great weekend of skiing and excitement for more than just the participants. My full set of pictures can be found HERE. Will I be “conned” into signing up next year… Always a chance... ;)

CSM trail scouting trip

The ski marathon is coming up fast and once again I have signed up for it – how does this happen ;) With only 5 days till we head off into the Quebec country side I thought I would once again do a little scouting trip to see how the snow depth is along the trail. The organizers have been doing a good job this year reporting “best snow coverage in years!” To some more cynical folks one might say – that wouldn’t be too hard :P but I still felt like seeing is believing so off I went to take a look for myself. Of course I couldn’t ski on the trails for the most part as they pass over private property and are only open to skiers on “game day”, but I could certainly drive to a few of the spots where the trail crosses the roads and see what the groomers have had to work with thus far. As it turned out is was an awful day to take pictures – gray skies and really flat light – but I did what I could.
Crossing the fields near CP10
Crossing the Blanche river looks solid
Happy to say that there looks to be really good snow coverage this year. Away from the roads – in the farmers fields things looked excellent. The groomers have been by at least once (perhaps more) and packed a layer of snow in preparation. Close to the roads there are a few slightly thin spots where sticks are sticking up through the packed trail. For the most part though, these were few and far between so they should only be a minor inconvenience.
Paralleling the "317"
A little rough here but shouldn't be too bad
I did jump out of the car a couple of spots and walk briefly on the packed base. It was very solid which isn’t surprising. With all the freeze-thaw cycles we’ve had and the rain followed by cold overnight freezes one would expect the base to have solidified very nicely. Of course when they come to trackset this base I expect it will leave a very abrasive surface. It should provide for fast glide but will likely be hard on the grip wax. We’ll see if we can coax the “wax guru” to make some best guesses but I would say a solid base binder or klister will be needed before you put on your “grip wax of the day” if you want to have good grip all day long.
Good snow depth coming into CP8 in St. Sixte
Leveling out the snow... and keeping the snowmobiles off
Good snow depth here
After touring around the country side I met up with Pete and we skied for a little bit on the trails at the Montebello Gold club. The CSM trail will be coming down through here as it finishes up at the Chateau on Day 1. The trails at the club are very nicely groomed and there is a lot of elevation change which must make for a fun golf round. Thankfully for the skiers, most of the elevation change they will see is down hill at this point. The one thing I did see on the golf club trails was a whole lot of leaves pulled up in the tracks. Not sure if this will be a problem for all of the course as much of it will only be trackset a few days prior so not much time for the local leaves to blow into the track. The CSM trail does cross a few other golf clubs though so I bet there will be some leaves to contend with. What does that mean to the skiers? I certainly picked up a lot of leaves in the grip wax on my skis and it seriously hindered my grip as the day wore on. I’ll be packing a small scrapper to get rid of (rake?) leaves off my bases if they become problematic through the course of the day.
Montebello trails with lots of leaves!
Even found some tracksetting has begun just north of Montebello
So it looks like all systems are go for next weekend. Hoping for good weather and good skiing for all the participants.

The home stretch down the nicely groomed Montebello golf club trails

Be careful what you wish for...

This past weekend I took a long enjoyable ski out to the McKinstry hut. Winter has finally given us something to ski with and - in spite of the occasional warm spell with some rain or freezing rain - the ski base has become decent. Of course with the bouts of freezing rain we've had the groomers have been working hard to grind it up and convert it to skiable snow but all things considered we've had really (really)good tracks of late. Still, when I skied out to the hut it was a warm day with glazed track conditions. Add to that a few flurries of fresh (wet) snow and I struggled with getting the wax to work. Still a beautiful ski but when I was done I was wishing (hard) for a powder day. The ungroomed trails - which shine in a big dump of powder - have been pretty much a no-fly zone as the freezing rain forms an ugly crust which may (or may not) break when you ski it and if it does break under your skis will more than likely shred your ankles - no fun. So those trails have remained untouched in my annual redlining project while waiting for the right snow to fall. And waiting, and waiting...

Murky days but beautiful skiing
Monday I decided to go back to the Adirondacks and see how winter was shaping up. I thought by this point I could maybe use the touring boards to go back up to the Avalanche pass or maybe ski the Lake road to the Lower Ausable lake... but like here, winter hasn't been too kind with limited snow and lots of rain/freezing rain events. Trail reports of people using full crampons and still being turned away from summits encased in ice have been all too common of late. So as I loaded up the car, I looked forlornly at my skis... and then left them behind replaced in my pack with the crampons and ice ax. Of course my wish for a powder day was heard by someone and , pulling into the Adirondack Loj I was greeted with 5" of soft powder. Not enough to have warranted the skis (although I did see tracks of skiers - who clearly hate their skis!) as the fresh blanket of snow had barely covered the summer rocks and roots down low... but enough that my hike today was going to be a bit more challenging than I anticipated.

Fresh snow on the bridge
Fortunately I had lingered over my egg mcmuffin and one (1) person had already broken trail toward Marcy dam. One track though is hardly a beautiful smooth sidewalk of snow and I quickly found that the uneven trail of summer wasn't too far below the fluffy snow. Still, I guess it's a base builder for later in the season. Took the new trail junction that bypasses the washed out Marcy dam bridge and was soon enough headed up the Van Hovenburg toward Tabletop (with a plan to maybe summit Phelps as well). Indeed it wasn't until I was up to Indian Falls that the snowshoes were really beneficial at all. The route up to Tabletop was untouched when I arrived so I had an even harder haul to get up the trail which now had 7 or 8 inches of snow and a steep narrow (albeit only a 1/2 mile) trench to the summit. Lots of fresh snow means the trees are loaded and waiting for the first hapless passerby to unload their burden on your head.. and I got quite a few snow bombs dumped on me. Enough so as to learn that - even with a lid and two (2!!) internal cuffs - on my winter pack, snow still found its way inside. Ah but like a good Sgt tells his men during an artillery barrage... one place is as good (or bad) as the other so I soldiered on and made good progress to the summit.

Hard work breaking trail ahead
Once near the top, the winds picked up tremendously. Fortunately - in such a different environment, there was no snow in the tree tops as they were all glazed solid with ice. Mountain tops are truly an inhospitable place in winter - nice to visit but I can't imagine how the stunted krumholz ever survive. The top of the "Table" provides good protection in a cluster of trees but a few short steps away are some nice views. Today the nearby peaks offered their grizzled faces to me so I grabbed a quick bite of food in the sheltered summit and then hopped out to grab a few shots before loading back up and heading down. Much speedier descent, as winter trails often are, but when I got back to the Phelps trail I opted against it. It looked (at least down low) to be not much different than a "white" summer version of itself. Very rocky and rooty. I'd already been dealing with the rocky/rooty trail of the Van Ho where your snowshoes catch an edge of a rock and then - using the power of leverage - haul your ankle or leg off in some wild and unpleasant direction. It's no fun and I decided that Phelps could wait for a snowier day when the flat even track would be a delight to climb (and descend!).

Marcy graces me with a view - a veiled view of white on white... but a view none the less
From there it was a short hop to Marcy dam and then another leap to the Loj. Having seen a handful of tracks in various spots on the trail I had spent the entire day without actually seeing anyone else. A little surprising considering the Van Hovenburg (or Van Ho highway) is probably the one of the busiest trails in the Adirondacks (perhaps next to Cascade). So I got my powder day even if it wasn't to be had on skis - nor would I have wanted my skis just yet in these conditions. In fact the ever deepening snow (as I climbed) took its toll on me more than I had suspected. That and the thinly veiled summer trail and I would still call it "late fall" conditions. Puxatawny Phil is a fraud - winter hasn't really started yet!! More pictures here...

A little winter at elevation at least