Hello Skiers,
On Saturday, March 14, Leslie LaBry and I skied Coyote Call Trail on the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) in the Jemez Mountains. In the morning, the snow was a very hard crust, and in the afternoon the top inch was soft. In the tracks
where people had been skiing, the snow was firm, but the undisturbed snow surface was weak and we would crash through the crust. The trail was covered with depressions and holes due to snowshoers, walkers, and elk. We used kicker skins all day to reduce our
speed on the hard snow and to make climbing the steep east segment easier.
We did not find any trees down on the trail. We had lunch at the bottom of the steep segment and then took a break at one of the "lunch boulders" in the saddle between Rabbit Ridge and Scooter Peak. Once during the break, we heard branches
breaking, and Leslie heard a crashing sound and saw a tree fall several hundred feet from us. Most of the trees here were killed in the 2011 Las Conchas Fire, and many have fallen due to decay at the ground.
Although the conditions were far from perfect, we enjoyed being on skis and in the forest.
Photos of the outing are presented in the attached Word document.
Sam