breaking trail

Here's a picture from the epic ski that turned two of my toenails black:

(I'll spare you the picture of my toenails.) I was out for six hours that day with two of my ski-dance compatriots, one of whom thought we might be able to break trail through this section of the landscape where they don't lay track. Um, we very quickly changed our minds. Pretty, though, isn't it? The map showed the trail going right over that frozen lake, which implies that it's a winter trail, but no one else seemed to be taking it.