Bolam-Cascade Loop Ski

I got a big ski loop, one that I have mountain biked before and one that was 1/3 of the Durango 100 MTB course.  Huge 9.5 hour day.

 I started at the ski resort and after climbing I hit Hermosa Park Road.  From Purgatory I was able to skate ski about 1 mile past Hotel Draw on the climb up to Bolam Pass.  I was amazed at how quick that went by.  However since the weather was warm when the snow started to melt my skins got soaked on the climb and eventually would collect globs of snow and ice so climbing at top became a challenge.  I hit the Colorado Trail and was able to follow the markers since this is a low snow year.

 Despite the heavy lifitng the climb up to Sliderock was awesome.  The meadow may look flat, but it is not and the elevation is 12k.  

 But it was warm up top as well and I didn't put glove on until the descent.

 Views were awesome.

Up on Sliderock ridge I had a choice, which was to follow the CT over to Cascade Divide Road - or - if you can see off in the distance there is groomed snowmobile track going through Grayrock.  Since it was getting late in the Day I wanted the safety of following Cascade Divide Road back to the ski area, but it turns out this groomed track would have been the faster route as it cut off about 7 miles and made it back to the same road.  The upper part of Cascade Divide road sucked for me as there were no tracks to follow and I busted crust for a few miles.  That really slowed things down.  

I brought my light and night skied about the time I saw where this groomed trail merged with the road.  Once at the Yurt, I skated skied all the way back to the base.  This was 35-miles and 4.2k of climbing using Mapmyride.com data:   I seem to remember it being advertised as 6k for the old D100 MTB race though.

These new lightweight rando skis are just awesome.  It was just like I did a mountain bike ride.