Upper Buskin Lake 2/12

[patrick]

This afternoon I skiied from the outlet to Buskin Lake across the lake and up the road and river (Adelia and Philip have been doing this trail a bunch lately). The snow is now very deep! Almost a foot of new snow. The lake was a little windpacked, but all powder in the trees. Some overflow on the ice right near the outlet.

I went quite far up the river and then cut to the left and did a new loop - hooking up with a creek that goes back to the main river and then returned on the same trail I came in on.

I hope somebody makes use of my broken in trail before it rains/snows tonight. It was a lot of work to break the trail in the deep snow.

Patrick

[Philip]

We just did the same loop. We skied from about 4:45 to 6 pm. It was lovely. Thanks for breaking trail for us, Patrick. The snow was perfect for gliding, though a bit punchy for effective poling. Very few critter tracks, and no walkers/snow shoers. Just clean, parallel ski tracks. The off-river/road/lake part was pretty soft and loose, but a decent start to building a base over the weeds.

[patrick]

So all that work was worthwhile - for you 2 at least. How did you like that creek bed trail back to the main river?
Patrick

[Philip]

It was great. We went counter clockwise and the climb through the elderberries, alders, and grass was sort of a struggle, but the creek bed part was nice. The snow base is just pretty poorly consolidated in the bushes.

Oh-yeah, how's your back doing?