After an early winter of mostly rain across northern Arizona, big snows have finally arrived. Two storms in three days delivered about two feet of snow on the south side of Flagstaff with lesser amounts on the north side. I live on the south side. So we have had a lot of snow to shovel off the driveway plus the piles of snow that the snowplows leave. Yeah, lots of work.

But we did find time to get out and ski. Normally, we do trail runs on Saturday mornings with Northern Arizona Trail Runners Association (NATRA). But when there is more snow than trail we switch to snowshoes or cross country skis.

So we found ourselves with a handful of other runners out at Fort Tuthill early Saturday morning. The roads in the county park were already plowed making entry easy. There is a new “snow play” area in the park so getting the roads and parking cleared quickly is a new priority.

And off we go following the Soldiers Trail in a clockwise direction. Very quickly the runners found the snow too deep so they opted to run along the plowed roads in the area. The remaining four skiers traded the lead often because breaking trail through this much snow is a bit of a workout.

We worked around the south side where the trail follows the old logging railroad grade. Then the trail curved around to the west side of the park where we could quickly see how forest thinning has made a big improvement on the health of the forest. Finally, we found ourselves at the trail intersection of the Flagstaff Loop Trail in the northwest corner of the park. This was as good a turnaround spot as any.

The ski back was significantly faster than the outbound trip had been because we now had a nicely packed trail to glide on. We arrived back at the parking area just about the same time as the runners.

Another winter storm is on the way with up to a foot of snow possible. Winter has finally arrived.