What my sweetheart Julie wants, she gets.
What she doesn’t want, she just says, “No.”
We’re not talking about fancy clothes or jewelry. I’d say, “Hey sweetie pie,” I was hoping the extra sugar would encourage her to jump on board with my idea. “Would you like to go cross-country skiing up at Kelly Canyon?”
“Nope,” she replied. “I’m waiting for some new snow.”
So lately, I’ve been going without her. She did have a point. While there has been plenty of snow in the backcountry to ski on, it has been hard and icy lately. That is until the most recent storm that passed through last Sunday and dropped about 3 to 4 inches of new white stuff.
So, I approached her again on President’s Day with the sweetest, most pleasant voice I could muster. (Since it’s out of my usual character, it kind of strained a vocal cord.)
“Hey sweet Julie, you want to go cross-country skiing up at Kelly’s?”
“How much new snow did they get?”
“I think about 3 or 4 inches.”
“OK.”
YIPPEE!
I dropped her off at the skier drop-off near the resort lodge, parked in the lower lot where the snowshoers and cross-country skiers park, and hiked up with her to the last ski lift.
From there, we skied up to the Y Junction and on to the Morgan Summit warming hut. With a fresh topping of powdery snow on top of a hard-packed base of almost 2 feet, the skiing was fast and pleasant.
At the warming hut, we paused for a snack and fired up the wood stove in case someone else was following behind us.
From the warming hut, we followed the marked route to the Pine Loop Trail. The route had been groomed and skied in the past but was now covered over with fresh snow. In some places where the wind had blown the snow around, the groomed path was only a memory. Not to worry, there are blue diamonds on the trees to mark the way.
After a few initial ups and downs, the Pine Loop Trail is mostly easy skiing. The route takes you through a deep forest of fir and occasional pockets of aspen trees. From the Morgan Summit warming hut, the Pine Loop Trail covers a little under 2 miles. It’s about 2 miles from the ski lodge to the hut (all uphill), making for about 6 miles altogether there and back. A map can be found on the Idaho Falls Ski Club’s website and also in the local guidebook “Eastern Idaho Sweet Spots.”
We experienced super quiet while skiing the Pine Loop. It was fun guessing what critters made which tracks in the snow. One small rodent had its sad tale told in the snow. You could follow its tracks for 20 or 30 yards, then the tracks abruptly stopped where a set of wing marks were made in the snow, left no doubt by a raptor descending from above. The bird of prey caught its breakfast.
We skied back to the warming hut, and then down the hill from Morgan Summit. Ours were the only tracks on the road except halfway down we came across fresh moose tracks trotting up ahead of us. The tracks weren’t there on the way up the hill. We could see where the moose must have heard us coming and left the road and continued up the hill and out of view. I imagined the giant standing off the road peeking behind a tree and spying on us as we skied by.
With each new snowstorm that passes by in the next few weeks, conditions should improve for cross-country skiing in the region.
Jerry Painter is a longtime East Idaho journalist and outdoorsman.
