The plan was to take the Cotton Brook trail down from Paradise Pass at Bolton and ski back to a car we had dropped off at Little River State Park. Things did not go according to plan! We started out at Bolton and went up to the Paradise Pass area. The snow was great up there. Plenty of it and temperatures must have been just below 32 since the snow was in good shape. We then headed down the Cotton Brook trail which also had good snow for the top half where the steeper skiing is. As we got down low and started traversing over toward the snow mobile trails things warmed up and the snow turned to cement. It was a slog in the deep snow that was sticking to the bottoms of our skis. Luckily Jill had wax that helped a lot but it still was a lot of work. Finally we got out to the snow mobile trails and we were relieved to be out of the woods and onto "groomed trails". I had done this trip before and thought you followed the snow mobile trails until you found some of the Little River trails to ski off onto. We skied for a while and got to some signs. One said Ricker Farm 1.3 miles. I thought that was good since I recognized the name from the State Park. We went for a while and got to another intersection with different signs. Left to a gate, no sign straight ahead, and something else to the right. We went left toward the "Cotton Brook Gate" which was a mistake! This crossed the river and went along the side of the reservoir. By the time we saw the reservoir we had cell reception and a map and saw we were on the wrong side of the reservoir. It was about 4:30 by this point so we had to press on. We ran into two people later on that we had talked to earlier in the day. They were out a lot longer than they expected also and we skied out with them to their car. At this point we had skied all the way around the long arm of the reservoir and were in Moscow! Luckily the two skiers we met drove us to Waterbury which was very nice of them. From there we called for a ride and then picked up our cars. Many thanks to Brian for driving out to Waterbury and picking us up. We got home at 7 or so. Very thankful we got out of the woods just before it got dark and things worked out (sort of). No problem getting to sleep when I got home!
An adventure to say the least. Some nice skiing at the beginning of the day. Lots of work after that and we had to push ourselves to cover a lot of miles before it got dark. Did I mention it started raining from about 3:00 to sunset?
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| Dropped a car at the dam in the AM. Unfortunately did not ski back to it! |
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| Getting ready for some downhill |
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| Christmas in Paradise |
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| Bear "nest". Claw marks on beech trees in this area. |
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| Skiing cement |
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