Skate ski up the Fortune Parkway to Ridge, west on Ridge to Huron and then the Champlain Lookout, then back via the Parkway. The trip was prompted in part by the morning NCC report which stated that the parkways had (at last) been groomed for skating. There clearly had been grooming of the skate lane, but by afternoon the Fortune Parkway was getting quite hard. This may have been the result of a large school group I saw leaving P10. Conditions were somewhat softer and more forgiving on the Champlain Parkway. Ridge Road had not been groomed and was extremely hard, making it difficult to get any edging or purchase. The classic tracks and the border of the tracks were rock hard everywhere. A classic skier in the small group I was with had to leave the tracks and ski in the skate lane on the uphills to get any purchase. Given the considerable depth of the snow base and the lack of any significant thaws to date, it is very disappointing that the main trails could not have been groomed to reasonably good conditions. Once again it seems that grooming is being reduced to a bare minimum in March. Unless there is grooming tonight, my advice to skate skiers tomorrow would be stay on the parkways and avoid Ridge Road.