No Softening Up

The air temperature, even above freezing, was not enough to soften up the tracks for good skiing. Strangely, the tracks on South Loop Road had just enough soft snow in them that I got good kick and glide. Otherwise, roads with old tracks were hard, frozen, with no give.

With highs hovering at freezing and no new snow in sight, it looks bad for any more skiing.

I parked at the east gate and skied in from there. I gobbed some Swix Red Special wax on my kick zones but didn't get any grip for the longest time. I skied the Out-of-Bounds trail to the intersecting 4WD Road at the meadow, turned around and skied back, then toward South Loop Road. I went south on D-South Rd to the forest boundary (this trail was okay, since there was a few inches of old snow on even older tracks.) I turned around and skied back. Somehow, as I skied South Loop Road toward D-Spur I started getting great kick and had enough soft snow to make it fun.

 D-Spur on the way out to the road was terrible, hard, frozen and rutted. I turned onto Chimney Loop Trail, so as to avoid the parking lot (almost forgot, the parking lot is an ice rink), and climbed and climbed by stomping my way up in the crust to the left of the old ski track. Then I followed an old, grown over trail out to the Forest Edge trail along the road. But I couldn't ski along the road. I expected it to be soft since it's exposed to the sun, but there was less give on the Forest Edge trail than in the woods. I took off the skis halfway and walked the rest of the way to my vehicle at the gate.

40 degrees
4:30-5:45 (dark)
Fischer Snowbounds and a sweater