Ditched work this morning to ski some of the fresh snow. Opted for P12 and found a freshly groomed trail 40 to greet me as I arrived. Climbed 40 and 2 to the ridge before turning off onto the BC trails. The fresh groomed tracks were a little soft with the skis periodically sinking in an inch or so as you weighted them but to be expected after a big whack of snow dropped. It will probably take another pass of the groomers and a cold night for the tracks to solidify and leave a nice firm base.

Backcountry tracks had been skied yesterday in the storm so were mostly easy to follow but I was still breaking trail through a few inches of fluff with the occasional knee deep drift. Skis get beautifully quiet in fresh, soft snow so was a real treat. No rocks were seen which was also a pleasure. Did run into one snag when skiing trail 20 across the pond. Seems under the warm blanket of snow is a nice layer of slush. Not more than a few meters out onto the pond my skis were caked with ice. Trudged part way across, scrapped and chiseled off the ice... and then hit another pocket of slush and had to stop again on the far bank to scrap and chisel the ice off again. The slush should start to freeze up now that I've exposed it (you're welcome) but I would wager the next few suckers...err, skiers that follow my tracks will meet the same fate. By the weekend the track should be fine.

Burma was rather perplexing and perhaps I was there too early in the process of grooming the fresh snow. Seems they had groomed it once with a big machine that set both the skate and classic lane. Then a skidoo (or two?) had gone over it again working just the skate lane. For the most part the skidoo had left a pretty ugly mess of bumps and rolls that would be most unpleasant to skate... but the classic track was fine. As I said before though - probably an effort to pack the base with all the fresh snow before putting the finishing grooming over the top (maybe tomorrow?). I would avoid it if I were skating today and hope that by the weekend it will be perfect. When I got to Ridge road the grooming looked quite good out towards Mckinstry but can't report how far they got.

Temperatures were warming throughout the morning and look to remain nice on the weekend. Should be some great skiing in the next few days.