:date: 2026-03-25 19:52
When you have a proper winter (i.e. snow is on the ground for more than three weeks leading to a spring thaw) it is common for some of the best skiing to come at the tail end of it. The reason is that at the beginning, the snow is light and fluffy and possibly deep. Skiing through that can be quite a hard slog. However, after some maple syrup weather (i.e. below freezing at night and above during the day), snow on the ground starts to change. It settles and compacts as the sharp edges of the crystals are replaced with smoother melt water re-ice holding things together. At some point it may become possible to ski on top of the snow.
Here in the central UP we are finally arriving at that point. This has been such a crazy year with not only a lot of snow falling out of the sky but with also the more important snow related weather that I always stress is essential for a proper winter: cold temperatures. We've had meters of snow and more importantly for what's on the ground, very little above freezing air temperatures the entire winter. But in the last week we've been getting some warm sunny afternoons and finally the snow is starting to get baked down into something usable.
Yesterday I tried to take some video of me exploring it but it's harder to get acceptable video than it is to ski 10km. Apparently. Today I had another go at it and this time I think I have a video that shows quite a bit about how the landscape is here and what our winter has been like.
During these rare days, my ability to get around the forest with this kind of snow present is unmatched. To see what that looks like and really what my winter has been like generally, check it out.
I'm still working out how to film this stuff and it's not easy. Today I learned that my mission of scouting out trails was a bad one to film because I was looking around a lot. If you think minutes 25 to 36 will make you motion sick — like they did to me — sorry about that. Just skip that part. But where I'm actually moving on clear snow it should be fine. The Gopro stabilization is actually pretty impressive.