Snow was coming down heavily on the drive to Rikert. Once there I could see the wind was blowing the snow so a pulled on my anorak before heading out. It remained on for the trip. I headed up to the end of the western leg of the race trail which come to find out was named Craigs Hill, the upper end of which I took on the last trip to Frost Trail. This time I followed the whole trail to Frost Trail but proceeded west and down hill to the Frost Field Trails where I found the Frost Homestead and the Frost Cabin. I thought I covered all of the groomed trails in the fields but I may have missed some as the map indicates there are more. At the top of the fields, not far from the Frost Cabin I found the Catamount Trail heading north on what looked to be wide snowmobile groomed trail with tracks set down the middle. I followed this for a short time through a very dark forest of Red Pine. The trees were very tall and dense and the trail was very straight. I realized I was on the outer loop called Wagonwheel which I didn’t have time to ski so I turned back and found another way back to Frost Trail. Once back on Frost, it was familiar territory except that this time the trail was well groomed with set track making for great progress to the junction of upper and lower Frost. I took the lower this time and then climbed back to Upper Frost just so I could try out the Mandy Trail which brought me back to Frost south of where Upper Frost and Lower Frost rejoin. It was a straight shot through a few intersections that brought me back to the first leg of the racing track and it was only a few minutes more before I reached the Ski Shop.

For this trip I used waxless touring skis which were perfect in dealing with the 2-3 inches of new snow but it had all been groomed so lighter skis would definitely have been a better choice minus the fresh snow.