A fairy trail

(I’m confident that some of our eloquent and articulate trip reporters could take these photos and make a nice bedtime story.)

Don’t poke the snow fairy!

It’s tempting to poke the gnomes and fairies which line the trail with your ski pole and watch their heads explode. You can get away with it on most trails,but on Redearth Creek, the fairies are protected.

This one looks more like a scary snow monster

If you hurt the fairies, poke them, or otherwise damage them, you will be inviting ill will into your life, and misfortune will be sure to follow you. 

This snow dragon can spray you with icy snow. I dare you to hit one with your ski pole and see what happens.

Watching over the gnomes and fairies are ice-breathing snow dragons. They can reach right out and trip you, or spray you with icy snow. 

A tree bomb exploded behind Jacinthe and Ian as I snapped this photo

If the dragons don’t succeed, you will then have to contend with the spruce and pine who may drop a tree bomb on you. Today, I skied over the clumps of at least 50 bombs which, fortunately, are still nice and soft. I heard and observed them crashing all around me. 

Downed tree on Redearth Creek

The trees can get you by another method, and that’s falling on you. One tree fell on the trail after I had skied past it. 

Avalanche path on Redearth Creek

For the real nasty people, there is one more way to make you pay for your evil deeds. The mountains will send down an avalanche! Luckily, none today. 
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Redearth Creek

The warden’s cabin

It was like skiing in a fairy tale!

The bridge over Redearth Creek near the warden’s cabin

Other than the tree bombs which fall in big clumps on the tracks, the conditions on Redearth Creek were wonderful. The temperature at 12 noon in the parking lot was -3°C, and the snow was -4. It snowed lightly all afternoon, approximately 2 cm during the 21K return trip to the warden’s cabin. 

Bill was on his way to the warden’s cabin

I started out with VR45(-2/-8), and it worked well until I reached 5.4K which is the first high point. It’s also the half-way point to the warden’s cabin and is 250 metres net elevation gain. The VR45 was starting to ice, so I rewaxed with VR40(-4/-12) and it performed well for the remainder of the day. 

The trail to Shadow Lake appears to have seen some skiers over the weekend

Regarding the tree which fell on the trail, I saw it on my return. It’s not in a dangerous spot, and is easy enough to skirt. 

With today’s snow, there’s at least 10 cm of new snow since the recent tracksetting but the tracks were still in great shape. The downhills on the return trip were very safe and dare I say, almost too slow.

I finally got an update on before Chuck! On the other hand, he did an epic ski trip of 64K over 9 hours. Make sure you click over to see the photos of his trip to Flint’s Park.

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