SHADOW LAKE AND BEYOND

Trip date: Wednesday Dec 07, 2022

Submitted by DEMOCRATIZE AB

Particpants:

A champion to legalize real democracy moonlight skiing

Discussion:

The ski conditions up the Redearth Creek trail have improved greatly. Very good skiing with a few centimeters of silky new snow on a double packed snowmobile trail.

I skied beyond the warden cabin to the first switchback. Some people have broken the trail towards Egypt Lake, at least in part. The temperature at the warden cabin in late afternoon was -5c.

The trail to Shadow Lake Lodge has been snowmobile packed. It is in generally good condition with just the odd rock. I hit one rock coming down the trail skiing to moonlight.

The trail was broken to Shadow Lake from the Lodge. I broke trail from the bridge, up the Lake to the Ball Pass Trail a couple of hundred meters from the Lake. Trail breaking was moderately difficult to difficult. Ski penetration was over the boots. All rain crusts in the snowpack seem to be broken down now from the cold. There was lots of collapsing of the snowpack and lots of whoomps as a result.

Skiing across Shadow Lake it looked like I would get a good view of Mars going behind the moon, but then some cloud came in and I was not able to see Mars do its moon alignment thing. Skiing out across Shadow Lake at night was very impressive with the diffused moon lighting things up nicely for skiing. The mountains behind the Lake were glowing under the moonlight. The creek after the Lake looked rather impressive being lit up by the moon.

The temperature around 8:30pm at Shadow Lake Lodge was -8c. The moonshine ski out was very sweet with the new snow. By the time I got within a couple of kilometers of the parking lot the skies seemed to clear and I could see Mars on the "easterly" side of the moon a significant distance. I missed my Mars eclipse.