Mount Zealand

Trail: Zealand Road, Zealand Trail, Twinway, Zealand Spur

Conditions: Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow - Drifts, Snow - Wet/Sticky, Snow - Spring Snow

“Conditions were not looking pretty for Saturday, but I had to see them to believe them. I am now a believer. The bare boot walk in to Zealand Hut on Friday was packed and fast, but Saturday conditions have softened up both the road and Zealand trail significantly. I bare booted out, but was slipping and sinking more as the morning went on. Twinway was a bit more packed up to Zeacliff. Spikes worked fine until Zeacliff and then I switched to snowshoes since Twinway has a nice base but mushy top on it. Less than a mile from Zealand I got caught in a very nasty ice storm. When the base layers start getting cold and wet, it's almost time to turn around. Was able to tag Zealand, but had to call it a day and leave the Bonds for some time in the future. Big shout out to hut caretaker Jess and the three other guys at Zealand Hut Friday night. It was a small, entertaining crew and made the say very enjoyable.”

Trail: Zealand Road, Zealand Trail, Twinway, Zealand Spur

Conditions: Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow - Drifts

“Well packed along the aggressively long road walk. Very easy to bare-boot and you only share the road with snowmobiles for a short period of time. Once on Zealand Trail proper bare-boots continue to work, but would recommend micro-spikes due to the base being trail vs asphalt and the gradual incline over the next few miles to the hut. Once I hit the beaver ponds I put on the snowshoes due to high winds blowing in drifts and kept them on for the rest of the ascent. Trail is well broken out even past the hut and up to the Zeacliff Trail merge, but the few post-holes I saw looked like a nightmare. The trail was easy enough to follow, but drifting snow was covering my tracks behind me. Had plans to continue on to the Bonds, but heavy snows and high winds hit once I was at the summit of Zealand so that was my only summit of the day. Did not see if the trail was broken out past the summit on Twinway due to the low visibility at that point. Broke one of my snowshoes on the return trip past the hut and used microspikes without issue as the day warmed up to rain for the last 7 miles.”

Trail: Zealand Road, Zealand Trail, Twinway, Zealand Spur

Conditions: Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow - Wet/Sticky, Snow - Spring Snow

“We had set out to do an out and back Zealand to Bonds (ZBD) traverse, and Saturday was looking like the perfect day. 35° and sunny. Downright hot! Unfortunately, the weather changed overnight and so we decided to make it more of a TBD-ZBD. Coming into the trailhead this morning we saw Jeff B! What a nice surprise! Pretty soon another gentleman, 5 lives, join us at our cars and we started up the road. Jeff peeled off at Hale. Going in it was very sunny, but as we started to approach Zeacliff, we started to hear the forecasted winds a-whistlin”. As we were approaching the summit, we saw Five Lives coming back, citing white out conditions, high winds, and very low temps. We decided to go on to the summit and make a gametime decision. As we were almost there, who should arrive behind us, but Jeff B! We went out to the summit together and talked about our next steps. I decided turning around was no big deal (NBD). The other cutie agreed, and we decided to turn around because I don’t need yet another summit selfie (so thirsty!). Upon our return, the trail was hard to find in the open areas as the snow had completely blown over our tracks in just a few minutes. I also got a little bit of an ice cream headache from the freezing cold windchill 🤣 All in all it was an incredible day, trails are well packed, bare booters are still out there trying to do OAB ZBDs with no snowshoes, and we got in a good 19ish miles lol If I may digress a little bit about the bare booting this season. This is not the season to be bare booting. If you are bare booting when you clearly need snowshoes, you’re kind of taking advantage of all of the work that everyone else is doing to try and keep the trails in shape, and then you are obliterating them. For me, it’s an integrity issue. Maybe reflect a little bit and figure out why the trails look so good for you, it’s because all of us are out there with snowshoes. It’s giving I-have-five-single-season-winters-under-my-belt-but-I’m-cheating-on-my-spouse-energy. I spent the week up north in various locations! I like to float around. Lots of colds ALSO floating around this week after school vacation week! You might want to get tested. These things have a way of following you home.”