Cross country skiers love Mount Washington’s “Far East” trail for good reason

by Keith and Heather Nicol

       When we ask Mount Washington skiers what cross country ski trail they prefer they often say “Lake Trail” or “Far East”.  Both trails have much to recommend them but Far East is abit more forgiving in terms of required skills so might appeal to abit larger audience.  Lake Trail is classed as a black diamond or difficult while Far East is classed as a blue square or of moderate difficulty. Depending on your route around the “Ponds” , Far East is roughly 11 km long so makes for a nice workout. To access Far East you need to follow the Ponds to Paradise Meadows to Jackrabbit Link to reach the 4.5 km Far East loop. We usually go around it in a counter clockwise fashion since some the steep twisting hills as easier skied going down and and the long gentle uphill return slope can often be rhythmically skated or strided.

Be sure to have a good snowplow for this trail

       On Tuesday, March 13 the forecast was not looking good- showers turning to rain. But when we got up to Raven Lodge there was no rain and the sun was even popping in and out of the clouds. It looked like weather was coming but if we got going quickly we could take advantage of the fast snow for skating and perhaps not get rained on. We also ran into our friend Doug Rose in the lodge and he was thinking like us—lets get in a quick ski before we the weather system arrives. We were some of the first people to lay down skate tracks on the firm corduroy skating lane and we one skated and two skated our way to Far East. 

  

You will use all your skating techniques on this trail-- Doug offsets up a a hill

Once on Far East the hills get abit more serious and we had to employ a solid snow plow and had lots of places to do quick step turns around corners. One of the nice aspects of Far East is that you get a chance to use a variety of techniques to get you around the trail. We also like to open aspect of Far East and it is one of the only cross country ski trails at Mount Washington to give you views of the ocean and mountains on the BC mainland.  Turns out we timed it well since the showers started only as we headed back to the lodge over the final 2 km of trail. Overall we were gone for 1 hour. So this time of year-watch the weather forecast but we aware that it is often wrong so check the web cams and current weather at Mt Washington to see what is really doing. You might get in an unexpectedly good ski.  For more information see: https://www.mountwashington.ca/

We love the distance views of the ocean and mountains