Cross Country Skiing St. Elmo
It was our last day of our 3 day cross country ski-a-palooza. (And my last day enjoying some baby free time!) On our way back to Denver, we turned off the highway towards St. Elmo. Just before we got to the ghost town, there was a parking area with a bathroom and a closed 4X4 road that we hadn’t skied before. We decided to give this a try, since we had already skied from St. Elmo proper the year before. It was a great choice!
It was road 295 that went to Hancock Ghost Town in the summer. Now it was closed to vehicles, but open to “over the snow” traffic. This includes snowmobiles and it was a Saturday, so we were expecting to share the trail with a lot of noise and exhaust fumes. We were completely surprised (happily) that we only were passed by a couple of groups. Again, they were very kind, slowing down and giving us space on the trail. We were also passed by a fat biker who (we learned from eavesdropping on a conversation she had with other skiers) had just biked up Tincup Pass the day before through the snow. She’s awesome!
The incline was very gradual and I felt like I could just scoot along all day on that terrain. The snow was decent, pretty tracked out by snowmobiles, but not iced over.
We paused to enjoy a child-like moment of rolling snowballs down a hill and then pushed onwards until Sarah literally dropped from exhaustion. We had a nice long sit in the warm sun and ate a light lunch. It was warm enough that day that I stayed in my “uphill” gloves (Seirus Women’s Gloves) and didn’t have to switch into my warmer ones (Swany Toaster Gloves).
The gentle grade meant there was only 1 spot for a potential “whee” moment. I made it through, but Sarah fell and landed on her already bruised right hip. Beyond that, we still had to kick on the way down, but just barely.
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