Beauty Ledge Loop 2/7/16

"Not Enough Snow for Snow Mobiles, Just Enough for Snowshoes" (pictures)

It was one of those beautiful days post-snow storm! After a warm couple weeks and rain there was little if any snow left on the trails. We then received about 6" of wet snow Friday and by the weekend the weather was pretty nice for February. We were able to make it into the unplowed parking lot without trouble. No one had yet been here since the snow.

We began our snow shoe hike on the Burrows Farm trail up to the North trail. This sections had not yet been open to snow mobiles not had the groomer been through yet. Up past the gate and at the Piper Mt. trail junction was where we met the groomed section of trail. While there was not yet enough base for snow mobiles the groomer did roll this section of trail out in hopes of compacting a base layer. With off-and-on snow this coming week the trails should finally be passable.

It was certainly nice to have the groomed trail to our selves. The sun had already been working on heating up the rocks under the snow pack and they were poking up through the snow. We past the Beauty Ledge junction and decided to loop counterclockwise continuing on North trail to the Beauty Knob trail. We followed this trail (which we need to open up more this summer) to the junction with Beauty Ledge trail.

We made our way up over the knob and down to the ledge. We had lunch and hung out making a snow man, taking pics and enjoying the quite. Once we had our fill and had begun to cool down we headed back down, staying on the ledge trail. We dropped back down to North trail and down to the parking lot where a car had made it into the parking lot. They had headed up Phoebes Nable Mt. trail as evidence of the bare-boot tracks going up the trail.

A great day, hiking in just a long sleeve shirt for most of the hike. Rodent tracks were visible along the top of the snow in many parts of our hike and there were a lot of porcupine trails all over the forest and along/across the hiking trails. We cleared a small tree that had fallen across a section of Beauty Ledge trail, otherwise trails were clear.