IO: W3: Cross-country skiing on Erie lake effect snow (NW PA / Western NY)

El Niño snow, you better show! It's been two years since Jen and Denise kicked this off, and it hasn't been repeated since, so time to redo a cross-country ski trip through the Cranberry Wilderness! Skiable snow is a pretty safe bet in the Cranberry Wilderness in winter due to its elevation. We will plan our route based on an estimation of what our daily mileage might be, but will have extensions/short-cuts at the ready so that we can adjust as needed. If on the off-chance there is no snow in Cranberry, we'll try to track some down within a similar radius. Worst case, we'll revert to a hiking trip and aim for something in the 40 mile range.

The Cranberry Wilderness is a fantastic backpacking destination with wide forest roads and railroad grades with gentle slopes, which makes it perfect for cross-country skiing! Specifics will evolve as we get closer to the trip, but the basic plan will be to meet at Vienna Metro on Saturday morning and drive out to the Cranberry Wilderness. We'll hit the trail and spend Saturday afternoon skiing, then set up a base camp at some point. Sunday we'll spend all day skiing around. Monday morning we'll break camp and get in some more skiing before returning to the cars late Monday morning to grab some chow and head home.

Participation will be limited to experienced winter backpackers who have demonstrated they are self-reliant and adaptable to changing conditions. You also need to have some experience as a cross-country skier. Make sure you answer the RSVP questions, and Brian or Denise will touch base with you to make sure you're good to go and move you in. Consider this an 'alpha test' for combining the two and figuring out a new way to experience winter backpacking travel!

Read through the trip report from two years ago to get an idea of the conditions and how the trip might go - https://www.meetup.com/DC-UL-Backpacking/messages/boards/thread/42037562 . There is some wisdom and good lessons learned you might be able to glean from the comments.

This trip is guaranteed to be awesome(!), and if that’s not reason enough to join, Haley the trusty-yellow-dog-with-a-beef-jerky-addiction will be accompanying us, conditions permitting.

*At a bit under 500 miles round trip and a DC UL recommendation of $0.10/mile, expect to chip in about $45-50 to the driver if you're catching a ride.

**By RSVPing to this trip or any other DC UL trip, you agree to DC UL's liability waiver. https://www.meetup.com/DC-UL-Backpacking/pages/Liability_Waiver/