More Fun in the Snow

I unexpectedly had a three day weekend off from work this past weekend and I made the most of it!  Friday morning, Scout and I ran the local trails while Kevin put in a half day of work at home. I wore my snowshoes and covered all the trails at least once. We were supposed to be back home to leave for camp by noon, but I hardly ever wear a watch and the time got away from me. We were having fun! I'd guess we did about 6 or 7 miles.

Kevin and I were happy to find good snow on the ground at camp, and more falling! It was just beautiful up in East Burke, Vermont. We skied at Burke Mountain on Saturday. This was my first experience skiing on fresh snow and I loved it. Kevin went up to the top of the mountain while I stayed on the easier trails on the lower mountain. I'm getting more comfortable on downhill skis, so its getting more and more fun. We wore ourselves out. We had trouble staying awake for dinner out and called it an early night.

More snow fell over night and was still falling gently through the day Sunday. I almost backed out of my plan to cross country ski solo while Kevin and Scout snowshoed because I wanted to go with them, but I stuck to my plan and I'm glad I did. Conditions were phenomenal! Kevin dropped me off at Kingdom Trails Nordic Center and I started out on the groomed trails. Only one or two skiers had been through before me. It was awesome! I was pleased that I felt strong and fast on the skis. I hardly got out at all last year and this was my first time out this year so I didn't know what to expect. After about 12 kilometers of fast groomed trails, I turned off onto North Pasture to make my way over about 5 kilometers of ungroomed trail back toward camp. I could see that one skier had been through before the last few snowfalls, but that was it.

Breaking trail was slower and more difficult than skiing groomed trails, but well worth the effort. It was so peaceful and still and beautiful. I just skied along by myself, smiling and happy. I have mountain biked and run this stretch of trail many times and I was comfortable about where I was and where I was going. When I came to the point where I had to turn off the trail and ski steeply down hill to Victory Road, I found a set of tracks from someone who had skinned up the hill on his skis, then headed off in a different direction from which I had come. His tracks were beautifully straight and parallel and I hated to do it, but I had to snow plow down the hill at an incredible speed, throwing snow everywhere and wiping out his trail completely.  I looked back up from the bottom and it looked like a tornado had been through. Oh well, I made it down without falling. As luck would have it, Victory Road had gotten enough fresh snow to cover the sand that had been spread on it. I was able to ski all the way back to Camp Road and only had to carry the skis for about a half mile.