I took Cindy's advice to get out before the warm weather and, yes, I did have a great day. Because I felt the window of opportunity would be narrow I made my tour short. I decided to visit an "ancient friend". I have talked about "old friends", they're favourite places that I try to visit at least once a year. An "ancient friend" is a trail that I haven't skied for decades - a trail that I skied when I was a real skier and so was everybody else. The "ancient friend" in question is #38 (Beaver) - in times past it used to be one of the Lorenson family's favourite trails. It's an interesting trail but, since I've adapted to flawless tracksetting, I found it to be a challenge - I've forgotten how to squeeze between trees downhill on irregular tracks with heavy unbroken snow at the side. When I finally got to the trackset comfort of #1 I felt that I had returned home. It's an interesting trail, with interesting challenges, but it's quite a change from the parkways.

My route was: P12 > #40 > #38 > #1 > water tank > #24 > #40 > P12.

#40, #24 , #2, #33, #1 as far as #24 have been trackset. The tracksetting is excellent albeit a tad predictable. The snow is wet but my fluor wax gave me an acceptable grip - the glide is quite fast. Classic skiing was easy and fast. However, skating would probably be a better option.

As of 12:00 conditions were still quite good.