Cross Country Skiing near Lake Clear and Paul Smiths, NY
Clearly Bob, post #16, Follow Bob
Clearly Bob, post #16, Follow Bob
Now that we are into November and
all the boats are snug in their winter locations gathering dust I tell myself
that this is the time to actually get some things done that I have put off all
summer because, as we all know, summer, no matter what the calendar says, is
the shortest season.
But while I'm raking leaves, cleaning windows, or
winterizing the lawn mower there are definitely enticing thoughts creeping into
my consciousness of the coming winter snow and all the fun opportunities that
come with it. Don't you love the change of seasons? Why would anyone move to
Florida?
I primarily like to cross country ski in the back country meaning not at a ski area where you have groomed trails and pay for a ticket. This does not require you being an expert skier at all - pick an easy trail and even a beginner can be comfortable.
Most of the time the more popular ski routes will
already have broken trails. If snow shoeing is your thing you can certainly do
that on any of the summer hiking trails I've written about or any of the ski
routes in upcoming blogs. My own preference is to snow shoe only if it involves
climbing a mountain where skiing, at least for my level of ability, is not a
good idea if you want your body to stay in one piece.
I've cross country skied in the Lake Clear area for 20 years (and elsewhere for more than I'm willing to quantitate) and here are a few observations.
Just like with paddling, hiking and climbing, there are many,
many nearby choices spanning all levels of difficulty. I haven't run out of new
places to experience.
Snow conditions
are usually better than you would think. There have been numerous times we've
driven up to Lake Clear expecting conditions to be terrible and, while they certainly
were not great, the skiing was actually pretty good.
There can be no snow at
all on the ground around Keene and Keene Valley and we're fine.
This is
especially true if you head just north of the Lodge to the Paul Smiths College
area, just 6 miles up route 30.
The Hays Brook truck trail just north of Paul
Smiths seems to have its own stealth snow making machines. The other favorable
factor is that there are many trails that have a fairly smooth surface. So if
there is not much snow depth skiing will still be fine on these trails because there
aren't rocks that need coverage. One example of this would be skiing the ponds
and canoe carry trails but, if pond ice is of questionable thickness (and this
is something that very important to question), there are other choices.
There
is a very good non commercial, unbiased web site for checking cross country
trail conditions in the Lake Placid area - both at commercial ski areas and
back country:
http://www.jackrabbittrail.org/conditions.html
The site almost always mentions the Hays Brook and Fish Pond trails -
the latter is located in the St Regis canoe area just south on route 30 from The Lake Clear Lodge.
Now that you are no doubt incredibly psyched to get up to Lake Clear and start skiing check out the upcoming posts where I'll get more specific about routes.
Get your kids to rake the leaves - yeah, right !
Bob
