Nice turnout today, 3 of us :)
Plus absolutely incredible weather, but also terrible for the planned XC skiing :(
Good job we had some snow shoes. Jim very kindly lent his to Michelle, and continued on his ski's for most of the day.
Set of from parking lot around 08:30 with Ski's only to discover the true horror of the snow conditions, which sent us back to the car for snow shoes.
So we snow shoed up to Grand Junction, where we met a snow cat coming down, so transitioned to skis for the last few hundred metres. From there we went on past Rockdale lake where we changed back to snow shoes, and headed down to Frog Lake, followed the exit stream down to the snowshoe trail, and East back to the main trail that leads to Hidden Valley.
Back to Ski's, and uphill to the Radio Mast, before trying the road downhill, which didnt go well, with Jim dislocating his shoulder. At this point, Michelle and I where both dreaming of our downhill gear :(
Jim's fall was the final straw which persuaded us to change back to snow shoes for the final descent back to the parking lot.
Total time - 6 hours 15 minutes.
Absolutely fantastic views, great snow shoeing, awefull skiing.
Snow depth is building up, and is now probably 3-4 feet across most of the upper mountain, but yesterday it had a nasty thin hard crust over very soft snow, not good conditions for anything untill it gets warmer, or we get more snow
Lessons learnt - allways take all your gear ( Ski's, Snow shoes, etc) as U never know what the mountains might throw at you.
I posted a few pics in a new album.
See you next Sunday for more fun in the mountains, hopefull they will open the Nordic area soon, which will make life MUCH easier ( I hope)
Cheers
Steve