Good Luck-Spectacle Lake-Third lake

This loop proved to be fun, and it would really be a blast if you could catch it with new snow on the snowmobile trails. We saw some rain Thursday which put a crust on the snow cover, but on top of it there was a little new snow for a total of probably 20".

I skied in to Good Luck down some easy drops, then crossed the lake on beautiful firm snow. The trail to Spectacle Lake starts in the far southwest corner and it's marked with this tiny little sign. The footpath leading up to the snowmobile trail has a few good climbs, but I did a lot of traversing to ease the ascent.

It was good to see someone had snowshoed to Spectacle Lake. It's a marked snowmobile trail, but the groomers don't touch it, so no snowmobiles use it either. Not too much up and down on this one, just good skiing.

Got on Spectacle Lake and the wind kicked up. I only found some slush near the shorelines. I had the lake to myself and it felt great skiing on firm snow. Once across, I skied into the marshy area where the snowmobile trail swings next to the lake. Once on the snowmobile trail I made great time to Third Lake.

The wind was behind me on Third, but the slush was more prevalent. I stuck to the shoreline and actually had a nice shoosh all the way to the eastern end. Next, there's an easy but long climb over the shoulder of West Lake Mountain and a nice descent to an intersection where I headed north back to Good Luck. On this stretch are a few good climbs that required a herringbone. I traversed down to Good Luck and skied across, got up on the footpath and skied out. The hardest part of this trip is this last 15 minutes to the road, as I was tired and it's all short little uphills. More traversing did it. Slow and steady wins the race.

Nice day, 35 degrees or so, but the clouds were there for most of it until I was crossing Good Luck on the way out, then I had blue skis and whispy clouds cruising over with the wind. 10:30 til 3:30 for the loop, with two short stops. I skied my widest skis thinking I'd run into soft snow, but between the packed snowmobile trails and the snowshoers who broke out the Spectacle Lake trail I had no trouble. The crust and snow on top of it on the lakes saved me some serious work, since my skis were on top of it except for a few soft spots.