A beautiful sunny day, and by the time we started the temperatures were approaching zero.
As a mortal no-longer-young skier who values control over sheer speed I found the skate conditions extremely variable. It was groomed before the snow had a chance to chill, so was predictably icy in many spots, particularly on the return downhills. Some spots had previously softened enough that heavy skiers had edged tunnels into the snow, but the chilly wind was already starting to firm up the soft sections and make them tricky to negotiate. The uphills, although often icy, were no problem, and some of the sunny sections had softened enough to be enjoyable.
Incidentally, the classic tracks were very shallow, around half as deep as they should have been, a fact that has become more and more evident to me since seeing the state-of-the-art grooming at Ski Nationals earlier this week at Nakkertok.
I shortened my ski and instead took advantage of the sunny weather to talk to other skiers. Fingers crossed for a better ski tomorrow!