Part 2: Lost Lake – In a Day

Have you ever wondered why you don’t hear of many people skiing lost lake in a day? It’s because there’s not actually much downhill skiing involved (at least that was the case on our day out). 

In our quest for “easily accessible” ski traverses this winter, Kate and I opted to check out the Lost Lake trail. By “easily accessible” I mean that we had to put very little effort into planning.

Bear Creek

To save gas and have company on the ride, we carpooled down to the Bear Creek Fire Department where we parked our car. We then began the first journey of the day hitchhiking back up the road to the Primrose Trailhead where we planned to begin the traverse. 

I commented to Kate that it’s interesting how the people in the vehicles most equipped to carry skis (i.e. trucks) drove right by. Luckily a nice gentleman who was on his way to an appointment in Anchorage picked us up in his very well kept car. We didn’t expect him to drive us all the way into the trailhead from the highway, but he insisted. We were stoked to cut off the first road portion of the trek. 

Primrose Trailhead

Once at Primrose, we set out through the campground and started up the trail. In my head, starting out on a snow machine track sounded nice, but then we hit the bumps. Fun fact I learned today, a “medium to large-sized bump on the trail, which at the end of the day’s ride will have you hating life” is called a “whoop.” At least that’s according to Mountain Sledder’s “Riding Slang 101.” The word “whoop” elicits thoughts of fun for me though, so I’m not sure why snow machiners use the term for such a terrible terrain feature. 

Lost Lake Trail

Anyway, we “whooped” our way up the trail. As we emerged from the trees, we looked up and saw the blustery conditions up high. We were able to stick to some more treed terrain for a while before making our way out into the open. The wind blasted us for quite some time, and got worse as we traversed across the low hills above Lost Lake. 

Once we got above the lake and made our way up the next hump, we had a decision to make about our route down. We were tired of skinning at that point, so we decided to take what appeared to be the most downhill route. That was definitely a mistake. We should have headed Southeast rather than Southwest. We ended up in a steep creek that we had to climb back up out of. We were not stoked on having ended up there knowing the potential consequences of our poor choice, but we had some good laughs, particularly when I randomly fell over upside down. Luckily, I did not fall into the creek.

We found the best route out to the closest trail which ended up being the Lost Lake summer trail. That trail was also not very downhill oriented, so we basically skinned down the trail. The real fun began when we hit a postholer trail below the Dale Clemen’s cabin. There may nor may not have been some close calls where face planting was narrowly avoided. Finally, we merged with the Winter trail and were able to ski the luge out to the parking lot. 

The final portion of the journey was the trek back down the road to the fire department form the Lost Lake trailhead. It was another misadventure in the books. We’re curious to try out the full winter trail or complete the route in reverse next time. Again, I’m not sure of the timeframe on this one. It definitely depends on conditions and the route you choose.