The past week has been so cold, snowy and windy that it has made it difficult to get out in order to enjoy the opportunities for skiing that this weather has created. But today was the day. It started off rather chilly, around 15 degrees but as the morning progressed the temperature rose into the mid 20’s. Put that together with blue skies and bright sunshine, it made it into a perfect day for XC Skiing.
I loaded up the car and headed out to my favorite spot, Bear Swamp. Bear Swamp is a State Forest at the South end of Skaneateles Lake, near Sempronius. It’s a beautiful area and has a lot of trails. So much snow had fallen the past week that the access road was actually impassable for vehicles. I had to park along side the road with lots of other people and had to ski about .2 miles to reach the trailhead.
Fortunately there had been some snowmobilers and snowshoers out tromping around on the trails otherwise it would have been a bit more challenging skiing as the snow was so deep. Unfortunately I don’t have backcountry skiis, which float up on the show a little better than my skinny touring skiis. All in all it was an incredible day skiing and here are a few photos that show you what it was like.