Just a beautiful serene and quiet early morning on snowshoes around Leech Lake. Foggy, misty. Evergreen Heaven. The nordic track was beautifully maintained and clearly marked. Very, very nice area and the wildlife pictures and descriptions on trees was a nice surprise and reminder of where you were.
That being said, snow is heavy and wet in some places, and some deep holes are forming on the sides of the nordic track where snowshoes need to be to get to the appropriately marked trails. One must pay close attention to this danger as there is less than 2 feet from the edge of the nordic track to the holes in some cases. Not a lot of room. This requires that you side step over the trail and into the center lane to get to a wider edge on the other side. Not really appropriate to step into the center lane with snowshoes. Later in the morning when more people began to show up, and especially people not familiar with trail etiquette, families with children were walking all over the nordic track in their snowshoes. I saw one little boy fall up to his waste in one of the holes.
Met three White Pass employees on the nordic track early on. Two gentlemen were very gracious, friendly and informative. At another time, and when more people began to show up, one woman was not. She implied we were walking on the nordic tracks on our way to the Pacific Crest Trail and asked us to be more careful. She then went on, and without letting us speak, to give us a lesson on nordic track etiquette.
Lastly, parking was easy and accessible since we arrived prior to 8am, yet there was a truck that was the first one parked and backed right up into the entry path. Obviously this person didn't know not to block the trail access with a vehicle. Wish that the nordic center parking people would have given him a ticket or left a note as it was difficult to get past his tailgate without climbing up the 4 foot wall of snow.
Really impressed, though, about the beauty of the Leech Lake trail system and the care that has gone in to maintaining it, marking soft spots, and keeping signs up regarding foot traffic, pets, etc.
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