Light snow fell through the night so the ski conditions out our back door looked good. That, along with some freezing drizzle and fog, convinced us to ski from home instead of driving an hour north to Highlands Nordic where the skiing was undoubtedly excellent today. We were so happy to be out playing in the snow!
My hair got coated with hoar frost.
(Don't touch that, Auto Correct! ;) )
Snow ranged from 5-15 cm deep with a thin crust from this morning's freezing rain. We did a lot of trail breaking, climbed over a few logs, crossed a few roads and snuck across a couple of forbidden fences (sshh!)
We skied from home through Palgrave West and Palgrave East, then crossed the fence onto the Reddington golf course.
On the far side of the subdivision, we had to take off our skis and bushwhack down a slippery hill to get around another barrier labelled with a "Danger: Electric Fence" sign even though it is just an ordinary chain link fence. (After my rogaine with JayXC this summer, I know what a *real* electric fence feels like!) That got us to the rail trail which we skied into Albion Hills.
There was much less snow than in Palgrave and the park wasn't officially open for skiing. We did the Red Trail before returning home on a slightly different route.
I'd brought 2 peanut butter cups and 2 gels for a 3-hour ski; 'Bent only brought 2 peanut butter cups. I'd been planning to buy a bowl of chili at the Albion Hills "Vegetarians Not Welcome" cafe, which turned out to be closed. I'm not sure what 'Bent was thinking!
As 'Bent's wife and adventure racing teammate, obviously the right thing to do was to eat my extra food myself so he wouldn't make the same mistake in future. ;) We were both ravenous for the last hour - too busy obsessing about what we would eat for lunch to do any extra loops in Palgrave West. Sadly, this weekend's rain will decimate our beautiful snow.
'Bent said, "This was a perfect Friday!" :)