At the Alturas Lake ski trails, old groomer Davinius awoke to a surprising sight on the morning of December 13th. Two dozen Evening Grosbeaks were pecking away at the seeds in front of his snow cave home as a light snow filtered down from the grey sky.  It wasn’t much but even a little new snow will help to cover the sage brush still popping through that first section of trail from the highway to the trees. It might even fill in the ungulate hoof prints peppering sections of Sheep Thrills. Other than that, some stretches of Alturas trails were packed, flat and not half bad for skating and touring. Several intrepid skiers had left behind skate tracks that looked pretty good.

The Trail to Alturas Lake has been groomed to within a quarter mile of the lake shore and Davinius was hoping to get through the last jumbles of swamp ice and downed trees with another day or two of work. On Tuesday, the freezing lake was singing and making loud bleeping, burping and booming noises in the late afternoon sun. At the Park Creek Ski Trails there is a bit more snow than at Alturas and some decent skiing can be had. New groomer and first man Adam worked on Monday to repair the Park Creek bridge and he was hoping to touch up existing trails with the roller and drag on Tuesday. This coming Friday, Daniel and Adam are planning to clear windfall from blocked Sego trail and pack it out for grooming.