“After a fresh snowfall, it’s magical”

Pine Marten tracks in PLPP. Photo by Ray Yong

Thanks to Ray Yong for his Trip Report and photos. I’m posting only a portion of it, but I encourage you to go to the brand new Feb Trip Reports page and read it in its entirety, along with all the others.  

Pine Marten tracks in PLPP. Photo by Ray Yong

“I love being out on the trails early – there’s a peacefulness that I just don’t get when I start later in the day. After a fresh snowfall, though, it’s magical. You can see all the animal tracks from the night before, and I always smile when I see them following the tracksetting.  Today I saw deer, moose, lynx (several), and rabbit (many) tracks, primarily on Wheeler, Amos, and Whiskey.  I always wonder if they’re watching me go by…” -Ray Yong 

Pine marten. File photo

Ray thought these were Lynx tracks, but tracking expert Chuck identified them as pine marten. 

One of the things I enjoy about the Trip Reports is their uniqueness. Every person has their own style of writing and describing their day on the trail. I can assure you that I read them all. 

Snow on the way

Well, it’s already here in some cases. As we are reading on the trip reports, the fresh snow is wet(“Enough grip to climb walls” – Chip) and we will be experiencing wet snow again on Tuesday. Tonight, rain in lower elevations is possible, so don’t go out with high expectations tomorrow. The upside is that it turns colder on Wednesday and there will be a lot of high-density snow to trackset. We should have fantastic conditions later in the week. So far, no extreme wind to worry about. 

Most locations in the empire are going to be receiving significant snow, but West Bragg Creek will be lucky to get 5 cm by Tuesday night. That should be plenty, because the groomers at WBC have been able to maintain good conditions with no snow. Imagine what they can do with 5 cm! The snow forecasts show it to be ongoing, so by the end of the week, there should be substantially more.