Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre is open and looks to have a great winter in store

By Keith and Heather Nicol

    You can always count on Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre to be open early and they did so again this year on November 13. We love coming to Sovereign Lake to get in our first cross country ski outings of the season and this year is was no different.  It has been a warm and relatively dry November along the coast in BC and this has meant virtually no snow at Mount Washington which is our regular ski spot on Vancouver Island.  We arrived around 11:00 am on Tuesday, November 19 with some friends from Vernon and Kamloops and had a fabulous day in the sunshine skiing a variety of trails.

We had a great day skiing with friends

      We like to take it easy on our first day and we liked the fact that on this day Sovereign had a nicely groomed stadium area with over a dozen lanes of set tracks. So we spent the first 30-45 minutes skiing without poles to get our balance back and the flat lanes in the stadium were perfect for this.  Plus the stadium sits in the sun so that is a real bonus.  There is some snow in the forecast and that will help open more trails. 

The new groomer will be able to keep trails in good shape this winter

 Sovereign has a big winter coming up culminating in the Canadian Championships from March 24 to April 2. They also have a new groomer (a Piston Bully 400) which should be great for that event and to keep the trails in good shape all season long.  As well the office manager , Jennifer told us that they currently have over 1600 members and new for this year are special discounts for members including lessons, food and various merchandise.  She also said they done improvements to the biathalon range and plan to hold more events there this year. Sovereign Lake Nordic is a full service xc ski area and is well worth checking out this season. For more information see: https://www.sovereignlake.com/

The tracks in the stadium were perfect for a first day on snow