For credibility I have attached a photo of the elusive, mythical, yellow machine, spotted out near the end of Ridge Road, about 1 K from the Fire Tower.

Yesterday's ski was a combination of fast, icy trails, and slow un-groomed trails. Today we skied "backcountry" to the Fire Tower, skiing in about 10cm of fresh powder. The wax worked like a charm, fortunately, so the whole trip was quite pleasant, if slow. The downhills were particularly interesting, as there was usually a mess of deep snow mixed with a chaotic tangle of skier-made tracks, remnants of the previous grooming and skiers'snow-plowings. (I had one very exciting near crash).

The groomer was a surprise, to say the least, especially mid afternoon. And he was going fast! I recall being "stuck" behind groomers which were going very slowly, but today, he zipped past and was gone. The tracks were lovely for a bit, but an hour later they looked only slightly better than the un-groomed ones we had started out with. The top of 40 was in great shape, but continued only to the turn-off to 33. The lower sections of trail 40 were rutted loose snow or icy, scraped downhills.

I so agree with Ron about the website. It is completely useless. Just roll the dice and go skiing wherever you feel like going. One thing is certain: you will be either pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised.