January 18, 2026
~ submitted by Evan Martin
Six dedicated ski tourers showed up at Raven Lodge with the hope of finding something to ski on. The conditions the past week were both wet and warm. The little snow pack that we had had taken a beating and looking at the rocks and mud on the ski hill was all but depressing. Despite this, we were looking forward to a sunny day in the backcountry.
Delayed by malfunctioning gear, we departed the parking lot around 10:00. Avoiding the snowshoe trails and lakes as much as we could, we found our way to the Battleship Lake trail. The snow was sparse, but we managed to skin all the way to the lake. We were cautious and skirted the lake, while a group of four hikers walked up it.
We made our way up the northeast nose of Elma. Route finding wasn’t difficult, but trying to switchback up avoiding rocks, roots, and other obstacles while keeping the trail skiable was a challenge. Despite the challenging conditions, everyone did excellent learning their kick turns and keeping the skis evenly weighted as to not slip backwards on the skins.
We arrived at the summit about 1:30 and found a place in the shade to eat lunch. We pack up around 2:00 and headed down the west side of the mountain. At this point we should have looked closer at the route. We ended up too far to the right and found ourselves in terrain too steep for novice skiers. Everyone kept a a positive attitude and between side slipping and sliding our bums, everyone made it down the short steep section safely and we proceeded to Lake Helen MacKenzie.
Crossing the lake was tempting, but we decided to keep up our cautious mantra and skirted the lake instead. After some tricky route finding to avoid the various streams and wetlands, we arrived back at the trail and proceeded down the Lake Helen Mackenzie trail. About 750m from Paradise Meadows we ran out of snow. We strapped the skis to our packs and proceeded to boot down the trail.
We arrived at the parking lot at 5:30, well after sunset, but still barely enough light to navigate without headlamps.
Despite the lack of snow we all had a great day. We had opportunities to practice our skinning techniques, kick turns, downhill skiing, and even how to strap skis to our packs.