Deep snow, gnarly, unbroken trail...

[rongon]

I had an interesting experience last weekend. I went for a 7.5 mile XC jaunt in a wilderness area northeast of Old Forge (western Adirondacks). I was on my trusty old Fischer Rebounds, yer basic 3-pins, Garmont Excursions. We started out well enough, but when we turned south off the main trunk trail, we found ourselves breaking trail in 1.5 feet of powder on top of about a foot of crusty, crumbly, refrozen stuff.

I thought there wouldn't be any appreciable hills, but there was one low ridge we had to climb and then descend. I hadn't brought climbing skins, so I had to make wide switchbacks while breaking trail up that ridge. I noticed that the negative-pattern S-Bound bases weren't getting much grip, so I applied a bit of good ol' Swix Blue. That helped just enough. Up high on the ridge, when I got out of my skis to see if barebooting would be any easier, I sank in over my knees. (Barebooting was not an option, obviously).

The ascent was a real bear, but the short descent was heavenly bliss. There really is nothing like making long radius turns in deep(ish) powder on light(ish) gear. It's taken me 10 years to be able to do it, and now I just love it.

Aside from those damned Excursion boots killing my left foot, that setup performed way better than I thought it would. Annums might have been overkill.

I didn't take any pictures (sorry). All I can say is deep, soft snow makes everything wonderful. Even while your foot is going numb from toe pinch (goddamned lousy Excursions!).
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[MikeK]

Pigeon Lake Wilderness?

What trail(s), whereabouts?

[rongon]

Yup, Pigeon Lake Wilderness. We went in along the Constable Pond trail (actually an old road) then turned south, breaking trail to Mays Pond. Then more trailbreaking to get to Queer Lake, and after futzing around too long, headed west to Windfall Pond where we found our tracks from the day before, and followed them out to the Windfall Pond trailhead. 7.5 miles total, but it took us way too long (lots of open streams to cross, and my buddy was having binding troubles that day).

[MikeK]

Cool - I've been wanting to do a trip out to Pigeon Lake via Constable Creek. Conditions need to be right as the trail itself is pretty brutal.

Also been interested in heading north off of Big Moose Lake - up toward the Gulls. I've been up in there during the summer and there is some nice off-trail stuff to explore on the small mountain to the SW of the lakes.

[rongon]

Yeah, I've had my eyes on that terrain too. On a previous trip, we were skiing the length of Constable Pond, and I was looking at a ridge going east-west to the north of the pond.

We skied all the way from the Constable Pond trailhead to Pigeon Lake and back, about 18 miles, I think, breaking trail most of the way (although the snow was no more than a foot deep). That was a great day.
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[MikeK]

I can confirm it is schwackable once you get north of the first Gull. It's pretty nice HW forest in that area and looks to be around the north side of the second Gull. There are some really steep sections there, but overall the pitch was pretty mellow.

I've been all around in that area and traversed all the way to Raquette lake before (not on skis though).

[rongon]

Yes, that is a wonderful area. The area around Pigeon Lake was never logged, which is one reason the forest in there is so beautiful. It's one of the little known gems of the Adirondacks.
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[MikeK]

Yup - believe it or not a good portion of the northern section was never logged. Never burned either.