January 10, 2026
~ submitted by Evan Martin
We started the day with a short discussion of expectations and what people were hoping to get out of this introductory session. Despite being an intro session, everyone in the group had some prior experience, so with too much delay we hit the trail at about 9:30. Although not cold, the heavily falling snow was wet and melting on contact. This combined with the wind made for a chilly start. Despite the cold, we were diligent and practiced a full send and receive transfer check.
We headed in via the Battleship Lake trail. We found the ice frozen sufficiently and proceeded down the lake. The upper layer of the lake had some slush which ended up wetting our skins. First lesson of the day – skins glob up with snow when wet, leading to lots of snow buildup on the skins. Out came the glob stop, an essential piece of ski kit in near zero temps. Unfortunately it was difficult to get the skins dry in these conditions and required several applications to keep the snow from clumping.
We then proceed up the North East side Elma. Lesson two – don’t follow the snowshoe track. While I was in the back of the pack helping with some gear issues, the front of the pack pushed on ahead along an existing but snowed in trail. Although they were able to maintain the steep line it became progressively more difficult as it got packed down.
We stopped briefly near the top for a quick refuel, but didn’t stop long. At this point we were swapping out our wet gloves for dry ones and trying to stay out of the wind. We opted not to go the extra 100m to the summit – we had all been there before and the viewpoint isn’t very spectacular in the fog. Despite the heavy snow, we judged the avalanche risk as being unlikely given the terrain we were in and proceeded down the west face of Mount Ema to Lake Helen Mackenzie.
Once at the Lake we transitioned back to touring mode. There was a fresh track across the lake that we followed back to the trail. While crossing the lake the wind died, the sun came out and revealed a fabulous view of Mount Washington complete with a rainbow. Without too much delay we made our way back to the cars by about 4pm.