They work, but not as well. You end up snow shoeing if it's too deep. Haven't you learned anything from our xc ski outings?
I met Woody today to xc ski Watchung, despite it being only 12 degrees in the parking lot, the cold really was not an issue on the trails.
There was probably about 5" of snow on the ground but trail runners participating in an event had beaten down the trail to a firm 10" wide tread, that was thin in cover in spots.
In the first 5 minutes of skiing I bottomed out in this tread on a rock an instantly went flying and landed on my knee. It happened so fast I was kinda like wo, what just happened. Nothing hurt but I was surprised to see my pants torn on my right knee and a gash on knee. It didn't hurt so I kept on skiing but I stayed out of the thin, beaten down snow cover.
After about 10 minutes I forgot about the fall and Woody and I enjoyed the single track flow.
We crossed over to the south face and it felt much warmer in the sun and we now had a tailwind. We skied primarily in tracks of hikers and snowshoers and avoided the trail runners thin tread. The trail around the lake is always good skiing, with consistent snow cover and not much rocks.
We finished our loop and skied back up from the lake to the cars in playground loop. The wind was howling up in this exposed area. Me an Woody took one last pic and I snapped a pic of my knee, which now looked like chopped meat.
So...I went home and peeled off my new PI Amfib tights and saw a deep nasty gash on my knee. I took a shower and went to the Urgent Care two miles from my house. They looked at it and said, yeah you need stiches but that cut is too deep for us, you have exposed bone. Now I'm sitting in the ER at Overlook, this is worse then going to Motor Vehicles. There is a drunk woman here who won't sit still and a bunch of sick people caughing an hacking all over. Maybe I should go to Utah's an see if his wife can stitch me up.
