It’s been a really lean winter for cross-country skiers. The New Year’s Day snow report was eight inches at Marble Mountain Sno-Park on the south side of Mount St. Helens, 3 to 4 inches at the Pineside and Snowking sno-parks north of Trout Lake and a foot at the upper Wind River sno-parks.
Figuring a foot was better than 3 to 8 inches, I headed to Oldman Pass. At noon, there were only six cars in the Koshko Sno-Park, two at McClellan Meadows Sno-Park and one at Oldman Pass.
It was 20 degrees with about a foot of snow. That’s enough for the trails to be skiable, but huckleberry brush and beargrass intermittently poked up through the snow.
The portions of the trail network that are snow-covered roads provided better skiing than the trails, per se. And while a foot isn’t much snow, when it’s the first outing of the winter and sunny, how can it be a bad day?
Unfortunately, rain is scheduled starting Sunday, so prospects are not encouraging for any of the winter recreation areas in the southern end of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
