A late report from last night. Wanted to go after dinner and park at P10 but - even at 8pm - it was full to overflowing with cars. Decided to relocate around to P5 but essentially did the same loop I had planned - the parkway from P5 to P8 to P9... up the Fortune lake parkway to Ridge and then down Ridge road and Penguin to P5.

Conditions on the parkway were very good with reasonably recent grooming so lots of "surface" to ski on. The little connector (32) from P9 up to P10 was quite icy in spots with a little gravel here and there. If you were going down use caution but climbing I was able to step around the trouble spots.

The Fortune Parkway was...BUSY! I guess everyone was scrambling to get in a ski now that the temperatures have become more reasonable. I had a steady stream of headlamps coming down at me the full length from P10 to Ridge road. Once I turned onto Ridge road the crowds vanished. Ridge hadn't seen any grooming today but the fresh snow over a solid base made it quite nice. As expected Penguin was a little (a lot?) scary icy. Yellow caution tape blocked the top at Wattsfords but I had no other option to get back to my car... so I took things slowly. About halfway down I discovered why it was closed off. A large ice boulder field awaited me at the bottom of one pitch. Required some careful navigation but I was going slowly enough to work my way through it. After that it was just plain icy but manageable.

A nice night out and great to have some warmer temperatures (although the wind was still cutting through when it got the chance). More snow would be appreciated but for now what we have is pretty good.