Fortune/Burma/Huron: I followed the tracks of one single excellent skater who had impressively long glide. I was the only car at P10, and was skiing alone. Fortune was predictably soft and wet so I was quite surprised to find a crust on the snow and bushes from about Fortune Lake and higher. Burma was covered with a thin, fast crust. It probably would have been prudent to stay on the parkway, but instead I decided to be extremely CAREFUL as I felt like the only person in the park. It was not possible to snowplow, with the wet and crusty snow, but step turning was also tricky as it was easy to catch a tip. I actually side-stepped (!!) a few of the downhills (and felt extremely embarrassed, guilty and apologetic doing it. Sorry!). But then again I had my only two crashes of the year today, one of them on Ridge Road, on the straight run down to Huron while avoiding some branches. Oh yes, there was a lot of debris on the trails today, including a fairly large birch tree just above Gossip Corner on the Fortune Parkway.
I couldn't tell if it was raining all morning, or if the trees were shedding their load, but I dared not stop often as I was worried about getting cold. Too bad, because there were animal tracks everywhere! As I finished up I could hear the wind start to howl, and chinks of glassy ice were blowing off the trees. On the last Fortune downhill, which was now slow and mushy, and required vigorous double poling, a few other skiers showed up. This was an awesome ski for all the wrong reasons! What a beautiful park we have! As I drove away the sun came out. And FYI there is still tons of snow in the park. I hope they will groom this up after it freezes tonight.