I was up near Rabbit Lake this past weekend, and I happened to notice that the creek was still covered in snow in some places. Rabbit Creek is really cool because the first few miles of it are in a U-shaped gully. When the conditions are right, it makes a sweet halfpipe. Was it possible that with our cold summer, the halfpipe could still exist in late July? I had to find out.
Tuesday evening, I ran up the trail about forty minutes and endured plenty of snickers when other hikers caught sight of my skis. But when I dropped down to the creek, I was the one laughing. I was amazed to find the creek completely covered in a solid layer of snow for as far as I could see in both directions! The halfpipe lives!
I quickly put on my skis and skied uphill to the end of the snowfield. Then I turned downhill and ripped up the pipe. It took me about 5 minutes to ski from top to bottom, so I’d guess that the snowfield was somewhere between one kilometer and one mile long.
Incredibly, the skiing was not terrible. It was extremely slow because of the embedded dirt, but it was relatively smooth and solid. Check out the photos.
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