This time the group was slightly larger than normal. Les brought his dog McKenna who shared the back of the truck with Tokul for the trip up. Er... she started in the back, anyway. Most of the time driving she was actually sitting/standing/bouncing between the carseats.

The weather report promised rain at the Pass, but when we arrived it was just cloudy with only a hint of the gusty winds plaguing the Moosefish Estate. We found the right parking lot near some condos on the second try and geared up in the relatively balmy 32F night.

The plan was to stay as far to the east as possible so as to avoid any night skiers. The thought of a high-speed encounter was not a pleasant one, so we continued moving to the east at each intersection. This, of course, meant we wound up too far to the east on the Outback run.

It's a blue square on the trail map indicating it's "more difficult," but I didn't realize that meant "straight-freakin'-uphill." Down lower there was maybe two inches of fresh snow blowing around, but once we started climbing in earnest we found the powder had been blown off and we were climbing a steep hill of frozen snow. At one point the slope was greater than 45 degrees and McKenna lost traction, sliding backward about 20 feet. Tokul whined a bit, but quickly overcame whatever was worrying her by jumping into powder.

While Les and I trudged more or less straight up the slope the dogs raced back and forth between us as if to offer encouragement. It must have worked, because before long we found ourselves at the top of the Silver Fir chair.

Once at the top I had plotted routes to a couple of lakes and a high point another mile or so in. We found the Nordic trail and headed south.

Although it was only cloudy at the base we were now in the clouds. Frozen rain fell occasionally and every once in a while we'd get hit by a chilling gust of wind. In spite of this I found the relatively flat Nordic trail to be great. In summer it's just an old logging road (I think), but with a couple of feet of snow on it it became the best part of any of the three night-time snowshoe trips.

It was clear the trail wasn't heading to the lakes we sought, but a spur spiraled up around a high point so we made that our new destination. The snow at the top (around 4,000 feet) was deep and luscious. We stomped a flat spot in a few trees and broke out the hot chocolate while the dogs continued bouncing around. Although they had shown some fatigue on the steep slopes they were again full of energy.

It was about 9pm when we headed down (about an hour, fifteen to get up). On the way up I had viewed the slope as a killer sliding hill, but standing at the top I suddenly had visions of certain death. I sat and immediately broke the sound barrier. I feared disrupting the laws of physics by breaking the light barrier so I dug my cleats in and managed to come to a stop. Good thing, too. Just ahead of me, poking up through the snow about an inch, was the sharpened remains of a tree that had been crushed by the grooming machine.

We walked down a bit more, but eventually gave in to full-speed, partially-controlled sliding. I tried to slow myself digging the edge of a snowshoe into the snow, but nearly became a tumbling snowball as a result. The dogs didn't really get into sliding, but seemed to enjoy chasing us down the hill.

We were back at the car in just 45 minutes. The rain had apparently fallen at the base, too, because the car was covered and had to be scraped before we could go. The temperature had also dropped 10 degrees to right about 22F. As we were preparing to leave a minivan showed up and out hobbled a broken skier/snowboarder. His arm was in a sling and he walked with a crutch. Sucks to be him.

Once again the promise of clear skies in the lowlands had led us astray, but introduced us to the nordic trails on the back side of the ski area. I'll definitely be back to explore more of the back country. Hopefully next time the conditions will be better.

Total distance was just shy of four miles round trip and 1,100 feet of gain.