Garnet Hill Lodge: 02/05/2010

One of the great things about cross country skiing is that you don't need a lot of snow to have great conditions. With the few inches of powder that has fallen over the past couple days, it seemed like a good day to take off from work and check out the trails up at Garnet Hill. Beth and I have done a lot of cross country skiing over the years, and Garnet Hill is one of our favorite places.



Despite the snow drought we've had this winter, conditions were excellent. Just about all of the 50K trail system was open, with most trails freshly groomed and track-set. On many of the trails, we had first tracks across the packed powder corduroy. Venturing off the groomed, there were about 2 to 3 inches of light powder over a very solid base, with probably about a foot total snow on the ground. We need a little more snow for skiing off the groomed trails and into the surrounding Siamese Ponds Wilderness, but the groomed trail system provided excellent skiing today.



We generally prefer the sportier trails, and today enjoyed favorites such as Solitude, Bobcat, Skullbuster (the sign above is at the bottom of the Skullbuster hill), Matt & Jeff and Hooper Loop. Very light ski traffic today (there were no more than 6 or 8 cars in the parking lot) kept the downhills in almost pristine condition, allowing us to really let our skis fly.



We missed seeing some of our old friends who worked in the ski shop but have moved on: Dick, Kate, Marko and others who made skiing at Garnet Hill special for us. But we still see them on other skiing adventures, and the outstanding trail system that they worked hard to create and maintain remains for us to enjoy.