skiing/touring the flats <rambling and pondering>

[Brambor]

I was just thinking the other day about something completely different from skiing downhill. in the light of all the long distance trails we have like for example the AT, PCT...etc...

I was imagining if someone thought about skiing the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, waiting for the lakes to freeze and then doing majority of the travel across frozen expanses of lakes or along the shore in case of unfrozen water.

My thoughts then shifted to what type of gear would such undertaking require and I thought about the Finns vs Norwegians, whether Finland with its lakes and flatland already perfected this mode of travel. would skiing with sleds be prefered over a backpack? Would skis be much longer but still wider than 50mm?

 

[DougPaul]

Such trip may encounter a mixture of typical BC snow (powder, corn, crust, etc) and some bare water ice. Kick-and-glide oriented BC gear is good for this application. eg 65-55-60 profile with metal edges. Bare water ice will be annoying--your skis will be almost as happy to slide sideways as forward and waxless skis may have no kick*. (You may be able to skate on ice--or just use ice skates...) Bumpy ice is likely to be miserable.

* Blue klister might work, but I have never tried in on bare water ice.

A pulk might be a good way to carry a lot of gear. However, it may be difficult to get it over stream gullies.

I believe the Finns use a small push sled with metal runners on icy surfaces.

FWIW, most of the Pemi Ski Lollipop (see trip report) and the Pemi Ski Traverse is low-angle kick-and-glide.

Doug

 

[mirabela]

I don't know the entire NFCT route, but the bit of it that lies around here (NEK, Vermont) would be to some extent a PITA to ski inasmuch as it follows rivers more than lakes. The rivers don't freeze to a skiable extent, their banks host a great many more or less unskiable features, and they aren't necessarily paralleled by skiable corridors. You could ski the bulk of the Lamoille valley, but you'd be sharing a very narrow corridor with heavy (and often quite reckless) snow machine traffic ... similarly, the VAST trails would probably be your best bet (and not an especially good one) to get up and down the valleys of the Clyde and the Nulhegan.

I think the basic idea of a long distance XC ski thru-hike of sorts is wonderful and has much merit, at least around here you'd have to do some significant improv off the canoe route.

 

[Snowflea]

Have you considered Vermont's Catamount Trail, 300 miles from Massachusetts to Quebec?

www.catamounttrail.org

You might find the Kroka Expedition link interesting. Wicked cool!!