Skied out of P19 today with excellent conditions on the trails. The main trails were in great shape with fresh grooming on 50, 54 and 55 out to Taylor lake. 55 blue and 55 "Alternative" had likely been groomed when the snow was still quite wet. The classic tracks were in good shape but it was clear the groomer had a lot of issues and floundered around leaving ruts in the center and off to the side. As I said though, the classic tracks were still in good shape so all in all a nice ski. Certainly a few signs of downed trees and branches here and there on the main trails but not as a bad as I might have expected. They were more or less cleaned up with the odd bits of sawdust or twigs to indicate where the work had been done.

When I got to Taylor lake I noticed skidoo tracks heading up 56 so I decided to follow them. No grooming sled behind it but rather just the crews heading out to clear downed branches. Skiied up to the junction and saw a lot more work had been done in here to open up the trail. The skidoo tracks turned north at the junction presumably to clear trail out to Lac Richard yurt. I opted to ski up to the lookout instead. One lone skier had broken out the track and they had done yeomans work - likely in deep, wet snow. I lumbered along as best I could on my skinny skis wading through shin to knee deep tracks (should have brought the wider boards for this!). As I got higher up the "trail" became more and more of a bushwhack. Lots of trees down up here. My "guide" had made good work of snaking through the brush and eventually I topped out but it wasn't a leisurely ski up to the lookout today. Not sure when the crews will clear this out. I would suspect it's a lower priority right now so could be a little while. Still a nice day out and a fun challenge... but I was happy to get back to the groomers with my track skis.