Today you could hear the fat lady singing in the Gatineau Hills. P9 and P5 have both been closed, so parking is at a bit of a premium. At 9:30AM P10 was gridlocked, so we started at P6 instead and skated up the Champlain parkway to Huron, then back down the Fortune Parkway to the Ridge Road intersection with a brief side excursion along Ridge Road to Shilly Shally. There was still lots of snow in most places, but a significant portage has now opened between the Huron and Champlain Lookouts and there were large bare spots in the base of the Khyber Pass. The yellow line was visible all along the hill just to the west of Black Lake, and by this afternoon I expect most of this section will be bare. It appeared there had been some grooming, but the skate lane was generally soft, chewed up, slushy and slow. Conditions were better on the north-facing Fortune Parkway than on the Champlain Parkway. The short section of Ridge between Fortune and Shilly Shally was icy and dirty, but offered faster skiing than the sun-drenched parkway. It's still worth getting out to ski (there will be time enough for riding bikes in the coming months), but it's best to stick to areas with the least sun exposure.