A nice evening ski last night on some heavy, wet but deep snow. The trails were ungroomed but someone (Demsis?) had driven a truck up to Gossip corner and left deep ruts in the snow which made for a passable classic track. There were a number of other self groomed tracks beside the ruts as well which were quite nice. At Gossip corner I turned up Ridge to Huron which had a nice track. Now risk of touching rocks as the snow was deep enough but there were a number of downed trees along here and a lot of branches bent over the trail from the heavy snow collecting on the limbs. Apart from one tree across the middle of the Khyber pass, you could weave around most obstacles. Jumped back out on the parkway at Huron and skied up to the lookouts where the snow was good but decidedly thinner. Descent was relatively easy though it started to snow quite heavily as I came down which made things a bit difficult to see in my headlamps beam. Fortunately my skis know which way to go..

Snow should last a day or two so time to get out and enjoy. Expect it to be slushy but there will be tracks to follow.

Skate ski from P10 to end of 24. Up on 1 / Khyber, back on parkways. Did a couple of km on 1 towards Penguin too.
A spring ski with winter snow: the fresh snow that came down in the last few days (up to 5ish cm past Champlain) covered what was previously bare. No portage required. However, unlike "usual" spring skiing, the fresh snow makes it difficult or impossible to "read" the difference between old snow covered with new and gravel or asphalt covered with a thin layer of new. So you do break through on occasion, but not nearly as much as I feared. A few new holes in my rock skis but nothing terrible. Need to ski light, and better not pick up a lot of speed on the downhills...
All in all, an unexpectedly enjoyable outing. Given the cold temperatures, conditions may linger a couple of days, but there will be bare pavement.

A little late season bonus of snow - even if it really isn't "late season" in any semblance of a normal year. The little snow we got on Monday and again last night have made for some skiable surfaces for those that want to get one more ski in. I skied up from P10 and out to Bourgeois lake on fairly decent snow - though I had my rock skis on and was glad for it. It was "self grooming" as the official grooming has finished for the year but there was some tracks from previous skiers which I was able to freshen up so there's at least one broken track to follow.

The climb up to Fortune lake was on fresh snow over the still remaining crusty base which was quite nice. Once you got up to the lake, it was more intermittent with mostly light snow over asphalt and occasional spots with an underlying base here and there. There was enough snow on the asphalt that I only scrapped through once or twice. At other times I ventured to the grassy shoulder where the going was better. I looked up Ridge road and it looked to be covered but I'd guess you'd grind out more than a few times on the side trails. One guy was just starting from P10 when I returned and was skating. I think he would have been fine to the top of the hill (with the underlying base) and then it would have been harder going to find enough snow to skate without hitting the roadway on almost every stride.

The snow should last a day or two (and there's a little more coming on Friday) so still time to get one more slide around if you've felt hard done by on this particularly short season.