Lake Trail at Mount Washington Ski Resort is a "fav" of many cross country skiers

by Keith and Heather Nicol

Keith "1 skating" one of the flat sections

     “Lake Trail” and “Far East” rank among the skier’s choice when it comes to favourite cross country ski trails at Mount Washington Ski Resort located near Courtenay, B.C. We wrote about Far East in a previous post (http://keithnicol.blogspot.ca/2018/03/cross-country-skiers-love-mount.html) and we recently skied Lake Trail with Bruce Moffat and had a perfect day for it. The plan was to meet at 1:00pm so we got in some turns on the mountain in the morning. It was another sunny spring day and several people said as we arrived that they were quitting for the day since they thought the cross country trails had gotten too soft. But we knew that Lake Trail is well shaded and much of it faces north and out of the sun so we hoped that our late start wouldn’t penalize us. 

Bruce skiing along Lake Helen Mackenzie

    Turns out we were right and the conditions were very good. We took skating skis and they glided very well over the hard packed trail. If you have not done Lake Trail – be warned it is like a roller coaster -  with lots of climbing and fast descents. This trail will challenge all your skating prowess.  It is rated as a black diamond and the trail map indicates that it is 9 km long. But when you add in the trails that you need to get to it and return the actual distance is about 13 km. As the name suggests the trail passes by some large lakes including Battleship Lake and Lake Helen Mackenzie. These portions of the trail are magical and very photogenic so be sure to bring along a camera. 

The wide trail makes for a fine ski experience

  Another favourite portion of the trail for many people is the last portion which traverses some cutovers and so the views are expansive. You can see out to Georgia Strait and across to the mountains of the B.C. mainland. Unlike many trails at Mount Washington which can skied both ways this trail is marked to ski in a counterclockwise direction only.  Depending on how many pictures you take and breaks to take in the view you should allow 1.5 – 2 hours. You only have a couple more weeks to ski this trail so if it has been on your  “to do” list you need act quickly. For more information on Mount Washington see: https://www.mountwashington.ca/

Come with a solid snowplow for the many descents