A day without other commitments - and fresh snow/pellets falling. A great gift for mid April. None of the parking lots were plowed today, and Meech Lake Road was extremely icy and dangerous, so I felt fortunate not to have driven far. I was the first car to arrive at P10 (of 2), followed momentarily by Kari, that well known skier who is always in the park.

Conditions were surprisingly good. It was minus 2, and the combination of carrot and a thin layer of VR 60 worked like a charm. Kari had a dirty looking klister on his skis, which also worked well. Go figure.

The climb up Fortune was interesting. There were ruts of ice from yesterday's poorly timed grooming, but the fresh powder had enough presence to give good classic conditions in the tracks. Ridge was in a similar state. As the morning progressed the ice became irrelevant.

I skied out to the bench by 24, as the wind roared and trees moaned. I was wondering if it was smart to be out. The snow turned to rain for a a while, then to stinging ice pellets. There were a few good gusts of wind which pushed me along at a furious pace. The ice pellets were quite nasty on the return trip along Ridge. A lunch stop at Western was an unexpected treat, because Kari had a roaring fire going which allowed me to dry my wet gloves and coat.

The trail to Western was delightful because it hadn't been groomed earlier and was not icy. The packed snow/ice pellets were quite firm, fast and fun for practicing step turns. 1B and Burma were also really fun, as the snow was now coming down furiously. I was perhaps lucky to not hit the two exposed rocks on the trail, and I did totally wimp out on the last hill, SIDE STEPPING (!!!) down the steepest part, as the coverage was a bit dicey.

Just to round out the day, I stopped at P8 on the way home (also not plowed and quite deep by this point) and enjoyed an exhausting skate ski on the Doldrums. There was one other car in the lot. The snow was fast but deep. Love those ice pellets!! Last but not least, a stop at Les Saisons for a dark roast coffee and something sweet! Photos will have to wait until this evening. But now I'm ready to move on to spring.