21 skiers carpooled to Winter Park on Thursday Feb 27 for our Club's very first trip to the area. I had scouted the area in January 2002, and skied there for over a week this January, so we did have some notion of what we wanted to do.

In Winter Park, we stayed at the High Country Haus condos. This is a mid-range but quite adequate facility. The property has hot tubs, indoor pool, and a meeting room, and is within walking distance of laundry and convenience stores. Our units were 2-bdrm 2-bath with full kitchens and all the hot water you could run. Generally, we cooked breakfast in our condos, ate lunch on the trail, and had dinner out. Friday night we enjoyed a group dinner in the private dining room at the Wild Creek, one of the best restaurants in town.

Snow conditions were excellent the entire trip. Winter Park seems to have gotten a foot or two of snow every week all winter.

Skiing–Friday: Everyone skied at the Devil's Thumb Ranch groomed area, exploring some fraction of their ~100km of trails. A few people (including the Most Honored Leader) didn't arrive until mid-day.

Skiing–Saturday: Sharon Byington led a group of ten on a moderate back-country trip in the Fraser Experimental Forest. The route went up the St Louis Creek trail and down an access road to an interesting view of the Siphon Aqueduct route, then returned. Part of the route was unbroken trail; thanks to Wayne Kirkby for helping there! The route is about 8-9km roundtrip with ~500' gain.

Lester led a group of four on a longer trip in the same area starting at 8:00am. This route went up the St Louis Creek trail and further up an access road to the summer trailhead for Byers Peak. Most of this distance required breaking trail, so thoughts of bushwhacking the Byers Peak Trail were abandoned due to time and fatigue. This route is 15km roundtrip with ~1500' gain. On the return, Lester and Barbara Coon took a side trip down the same route used by Sharon, descended the rather intimidating Siphon Aqueduct route (250' in ¼ mile), and came back on the flat St Louis Creek road. This excursion adds only 1-2km to the route, but has excitement!

A few people skied independently at Snow Mountain.

Skiing–Sunday: Sharon took a large group to Snow Mountain, another groomed area with ~100km of trails. They split into smaller groups to explore the trails, and also explored the culinary intricacies of the Skinny Ski Café, above the Nordic Center.

Lester led a group of four on the Deadhorse Creek Loop, a 10-km loop route in the Fraser Experimental Forest which climbs ~1100' up and above Deadhorse Creek and then screams down the Spruce Creek Trail back to the parking lot. The excellent snow conditions allowed (barely) for control on the descent, making skins unnecessary. As on Saturday, much of the uphill required breaking trail, but we were still down by 2:00pm.

Skiing–Monday: Lester, Sharon, and Barbara Coon were the only skiers on Monday. We did about 3 hours of varied trail work at Snow Mountain, including some exciting downhill runs which Sharon had discovered on Sunday.