It was -20°C when Chip and I arrived at the Pocaterra hut this morning, and so was the snow temperature. Waxing is pretty easy in these conditions, and to appreciate the cold, all I have to do is think back about a month when we had that warm spell and all the wax-fests. These conditions are so much better, and with the bright sun today, it never seemed that cold.
Woolley trail in PLPP
There are still a lot of trails in PLPP’s north end which I hadn’t skied on yet this winter, so we started behind the hut, across the road and onto Lodgepole.
After we made our 13K loop on Lodgepole, Braille, Meadow, Woolley, Lynx, and Pocaterrra, it had warmed up to -11°C back at the hut. We took about an hour’s break and headed back up Pocaterra to the Whiskey Jack junction just so we could enjoy the exhilarating 10K of downhill on the way back. The tracks were good and fast by this time.
It wasn’t too cold for a picnic on Pocaterra
Conditions on every trail are excellent. There was some tracksetting last night in the south end(Whiskey Jack, Tyrwhitt, Hydroline, and Lookout) but with little new snow in the past week, and the cold weather, the good tracks have been preserved everywhere you go.
I have a lot of photo entries to process for the Emerald Lake Lodge contest, so I am going to keep this short and let you look at the pictures from today’s ski.
It was, indeed, a wonderful day of skiing at the north end. We did about the same thing you did (probably met up), went Meadow – Wooley – Amos – Lynx – Pocaterra – Come Along – Pocaterra – Lodgepole – Sinclair – Meadow and back to the lodge. Will start from Pocaterra hut next time (duh). Did notice that the hordes had scraped some hills to ice on our second trip out.