It’s been a warm and dry fall and up until a few days ago only about one inch of snow has fallen. That all changed yesterday and today and we have had about 18″ of new snow in the Flagstaff area with more to come. Instead of our NATRA group trail run today some of us went cross-county skiing (but I forgot the camera!). So, here are a few shots from the neighborhood instead.
We recently took a multiday ski backpack trip to a mountain hut in Colorado. Although the snow pack remains below normal across most of the west, there had been enough recent snow in the Colorado mountains to produce good ski conditions — albeit on a thinner than typical snow pack.
It’s always interesting to run across animal tracks in the snow. Although I own a couple of books to identify animal tracks I’ve never been particularly good at it. I can usually distinguish between canine and feline prints but not between, say, mountain lion and lynx or bobcat. Or between coyote and fox.
So we came across this set of tracks that followed a skiers trail up the mountain. The size of the prints was large enough to eliminate bobcat but that still leaves the less common lynx and more common mountain lion. Which was it?
After reading the descriptions — carefully, and a couple of times — I’m still not sure but am leaning slightly towards lynx. We know that there are lynx in this area because there are a number of signs asking for people to report any indications of lynx. But even if we’re wrong, that means these are mountain lion tracks. And they are following the skiers trail. Which was made by us. Exciting, actually!
And, then, there are these tracks higher up the mountain. I didn’t get close enough to see the details because I was more amused by the pattern of the tracks. Sort of suggests the critter was playing around in the snow.
And, finally, a set of tracks I can identify!
Good snowstorms have been in short supply this winter with long gaps between events. So when there is fresh powder on the mountain there is no time to waste. In addition, at this time of year the sun quickly turns light powder into something far heavier.
So we set out one morning recently to see what the Kachina Peaks had to offer. After skiing up the summer hiking trail and then off trail through the trees we came to our first option. But there were still many rocks poking through the snow (see the comment above about “short supply”). So we moved on to our second choice. Much better. Rocks were nicely covered, the snow was in good shape, and no skiers had hit this slope yet.
So up we climbed through the lower and middle sections of the slope until the pitch quickly steepened. And down we went. The conditions were good and we had a blast carving turns on the slope in our skinny skis and leather, 3-pin boots. Old-school technology!
So we did it again. Fastened the climbing skins on and back up one more time. But the sun was already making a difference and on the second run the light powder was turning heavy and the downhill run wasn’t as fast as the first one. Good enough and we called it a day.
