There are those times when you just have to get out and spend a day skiing in the woods. Last Saturday was it for me, a 20 mile roundtrip from Frisco to Breckenridge and back along the Peaks Trail. It's not a real difficult route, but mostly it allowed a bit of solitude, good physical effort and some truly fun backcountry skiing.
The start of the Peaks Trail, just past Rainbow Lake and about 2 miles from where I started from Frisco.
New snow left gorgeous marshmallow lumps in all the creeks.
One of the main intersections along the way - the Miner's Creek Trail heads east to Hwy 9.
Next intersection about another half mile on leads to Wheeler Junction near Copper Mountain ski area and would be a challenging 9 mile trek west. Maybe next time!
Lost the route here and had to break trail in 2-3 foot snow over downed trees and stumps in really gusty winds and blowing snow, but just enough sun to see shadows.
Middle Barton Creek crossing near Breckenridge.
Broke another trail on the way back that was more direct but still a slog.
The treat for all my efforts: a moose! I had just found a loose binding and had taken a break to eat and fix it. When I stood up, there was a moose cow about 20 feet away and I startled her and she took a few strides and made her way behind some trees before I could get the camera out. So beautiful!!
And that was my day in the snow...the 20 miles took about 6 hours, though I did a fair amount of just oggling my surroundings and chatting with the few folks I met along the way. Got lots of kudos for making the roundtrip and numerous comments about wishing they had done the same. Don't we all feel like that sometimes?
