The sequel:

As reported by Jo-Ann I skied yesterday, via Fischer Crown waxless, to the intersection of #1 blue and the old #10. I could have done the additional 1km+ to the tower without problem.

Up to the Wolf Ridge I found conditions difficult - more grunt than glory - for which the waxless worked well. At the Wolf Ridge the world changed with complete coverage and a good base; the snow of two days ago had not been skied on so the surface was undisturbed. It would have been a delight to skate to the tower - but I was rooted to the inelegant Crowns.

With the drop in temperature the snow will gain new life with excellent fast skating conditions from Wolf to the tower - the problem is that the routes (#40, Blanchet, #1, whatever) to Wolf will be icy and deteriorated.

For me the pain of the access is going to outweigh the joy of the skate. Personally I’m going to opt for summer wax and leave the trails to that rampaging grouse.

Bon été tout le monde.

P12-trail 40, 24, Ridge to Wolf, along Ridge to trail 2 to P12.

Having almost skied yesterday, Ron's last report inspired me to get out today for a final farewell ski. Now that I've seen how much snow is left on the "dark side" of the park, it won't be the last ski of the season after all!

Conditions were much as Ron described them yesterday. It was a long, relaxed afternoon with some good skiing, a tiny bit of "portaging" and some juicy mud on the lower stretches of trail 40. There were deer, hawks and that renowned ruffed grouse. There are a few more photos on musicianonskis.ca

There’s still coverage from P12 (probably) to the tower - there was 2 cm of new snow yesterday which made the surface more even and much cleaner. There are some bare spots but not substantively more than on the weekend.

I skated from P12 with the intent of going to the tower but at the Wolf ridge I decided that the sun was better than the glide so I opted for the bench. If I had started an hour earlier there would have been great glide on the new powder - when I got to there it was starting to turn to slush in the sun. There was still a reasonable glide in the shade.

MacDonald (#40) had an uneven surface which made for less-than-ideal skating - with waxless there would have been no problem. You have to walk the first hill - there’s also one minor bare spot. Other than that #40 makes an ideal escalator to get to the top of the ridge.

#24 and #1 blue are fine for skating with the glide being a function of the temperature. The problems between Blanchette and Wolf have not increased measurably - you can do it without taking your skis off until you get to the final climb to the ridge. From there it looks quite good.

Frost tonight should put new life in that new snow.

Skied from Mackenzie King to the lookouts. Had continuous track of snow but a number of spots are getting pretty thin. Today's grooming started(ended?) at Bourgeois Lake and presumably went down to P10 but I didn't venture down that way. Conditions were actually better where there was no grooming (as long as there was snow;-). Won't be long before the pockets of asphalt become larger and larger portages and then we have to weigh the decision as to how much walking is worthwhile for another stretch of skiing...

Skied from P5 to GP-CP intersection, then to bottom of Black and back. Did not have to remove skis (but close!). Very fast conditions, but could still get an edge. Fun skiing!

Another beautiful sunny day out on the trails. I had to walk a few hundred meters from P7 up the first hill but after that the snow was pretty good. Ridge road was in great shape from Wattsfords out to the lookouts with only a few dirty sections or bare patches to step around. No recent grooming on Ridge I expect but the snowpack is nice and hard making for good skiing.

Spent some time enjoying the view at Brule (the parkway still has a little ribbon of snow to ski along in front of the lookout but it might not last long) before heading down Burma. One short portage on Burma and a tree across the trail below the Ramparts trail but otherwise in excellent shape. The final descent onto the parkway is starting to open up some bare patches but I managed to ski down without incident.

All in all a great day to ski and enjoy the sun. Cooler weather ahead (and maybe some snow?) so the skiing should last a little while yet even without fresh grooming every morning.

Skated to Blanchette via FP, CP, the lookout, and #1; returned via #1 to Huron then CP and FP.

The tracksetting today was a work of art. When I started out conditions were discouraging - half way up I met three of the best of the tracksetting crew - pushing the snowballs back into track then re-doing the classic and skating tracks - and then things really improved. FP has been done and CP as far as Huron and towards Black Lake. For this and for the good tracks over the season un gros merçi à André et les autres membres de l’éqipe de traçage !!

Whichever way you go to the lookout from Huron (CP or #1) things are going to be rough - bare spots and water. BUT !! When you get past the lookout things really improve. There was a solid, fast base on #1 as far as Blachette for both skating and classic - it was really good for skating. I’ve got it from a reliable source (Suhung) that conditions were even better from Wolf to the tower. Toward Western #1B and #2 looked just as good. The snow is starting to look dirty but, regardless, my bases came back relatively clean.

Encore un gros merçi aux gars sur les dameuses.

Portaging isn’t necessary yet but it’s not long away.

Skated to the Wolf Ridge via FP, CP, the lookout, and #1; returned via #1 (with a timeout for swamp-shore-sitting) to Huron then CP and FP.

Tracksetting went as far as #24.

CP is still good: the bare spot at Étienne Brulé is developing but you can still get by without taking off your skis; elsewhere there was good coverage.

#1 is interesting. Between Huron and the lookout there are bare spots and rocks; the wet spots are turning into pools. From the lookout to Blanchette there is almost consistent coverage except that things getting thin by the bench. From Blanchette to Wolf it gets quite varied - bare spots, mud, debris, gravel showing, tunnels and cave-ins from the melt-water, and excellent firm fast snow in the shade. Past Blanchette rock skis are probably a good idea.

FP is varied: in some areas the yellow line is already showing.; other areas have glorious fast corn; other places have heavy putty; some areas are blue ice.

In summation: skating is still there and is interesting depending on where you are - the people doing classic seemed to be doing just fine. I passed a blind classic skier on #1 past the lookout (with a guide) doing just great - needless to say I was impressed.

Proof that 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Like Ron, I highly recommend the skiing right now. We are still experiencing near perfect coverage - I saw only 4 tiny bare spots on my route to the Firetower via Fortune parkway, #3, #1b, #24 and return via #1 and Fortune parkway. No need to use rocks skis, take your skis off or worry about hitting rocks or dirt.

There was no fresh grooming today, but the snow was clean and fast. It was more granular and fast on the parkways but Burma was a real treat, as was #24 and the entirety of #1 past #24.

We'll get another week in before rocks skis are needed given the current coverage.

Some 20 odd more photos from my ski.

Skated to beaver pond just before Blanchette & #1 via FP, CP, the lookout, and #1; returned via #1 to Huron then CP and FP.

What is “not recommended” I highly recommend! In spite of the big red X (on the NCC report) against #1 past #3, the conditions on #1 are quite good with good coverage except at the bench where it is skiably thin. It will probably be possible to ski to the tower for a few days with very few “portages”.

Between Huron and Champlain Lookout: Ridge is showing bare spots and wet spots - CP is showing some asphalt and wet spots. Both can be skied without removing the skis. FP has wet spots that will probably be bare within a day.

Tracksetting was restricted to the parkways; however, when things softened it didn't really matter. The form of all trails is good - the skate track is not too rutted and the classic tracks are firm.

Here are some photos to add to Ron's report. I had a lovely late afternoon ski, although somewhat shorter than Ron's. The only mystery is why the park ski conditions page had these trails marked with a big red X, "not recommended".

In summation: conditions are still good with little damage from the weekend. The snowpack off-track is about 25-30 cm deep.

Skated to #1 & Blanchette (snowshoe trail) via FP, CP, the lookout, and #1; returned via #1 to Huron then CP and FP.

Tracksetting was excellent; FP, CP, #1, #24 had been done. It seems to have gone all the way on #1 - at least to McKinstry. There are none of the usual bare spots although things are getting thin at the Champlain lookout and the bench on #1. Checked out Burma and it seems to be in good shape even though it hasn’t been done today due to the soft surface.

In the morning conditions were firm with a soft surface and remarkably fast. On the way back things were getting soft and slow in the sun. The classic tracks remained firn - the classic skiers seemed to be doing well. The real surprise is that the snow is still clean - didn’t have any gunk on my bases.

With the frost tonight conditions should be astounding tomorrow - the only bad news is that the pond-cruising is getting dodgy and is probably finished for the season.

Skated up to the Lusk cabin. Still lots of snow up at Lac Phillipe - maybe a ft. of base on th trails. Pretty soft but the sun was out so I was in no hurry. No bare spots anywhere but there were a few stretches that were getting dirty and the skidoo track on the side looked pretty icy(?). Best to try to avoid the dirty snow which I didn't. As a result my skis got pretty slow by the end of the day picking up a lot of... umm, stuff. Maybe the rain tomorrow will clean up the snow? Not too many people up skiing which is too bad. Definetley some good skiing to be had for another week at least.

Beautiful skiing morning with great conditions! Hope you got out to enjoy, but don't fear there are many days left...even if it rains.

Trail #31 was a bit dirty, but Ridge was great and clean. Burma was ungroomed??

The craziest thing I saw today wasn't the five women in the pink wigs, but the snowballs that had been plowed off the parkways! I can see the groomers wanting to level the trails off, but why not plow the snow into the middle and help prolong the season. But they chose to plow the snow off... sadness.

Lots of kids out today as March Break is in full swing. Chelsea Nordiq was having a cookie party - thus the women in wigs. Skinouk, Kanata and Nakkertok kids were out in numbers too. Great day for it.

Great skiing day! First ski in a week as I've been out of town and it doesn't seem like we've lost much snow yet. There's lots of base for the weekend, not a single bare spot on Ridge, Burma, #2, #31 or #32. That's amazing after all these warm days. Lots of skiers out enjoying the good weather and conditions before the rain. If the weather held the current pattern I'd say we'd have 2-3 more weeks of good skiing. We'll see what the rain does.

Ken's right it's all about timing! Too early and you get crusty fast barely skiable conditions, too late and you get soft slow conditions. Hit it just right and you get fast easy skiing. I was a bit late starting at 11, somewhere in the 9-10 range would have been perfect. Oddly enough, it got faster on Burma and Ridge around 1:30pm the end of my ski. I think the wind was whisking away the moisture from the sun melted snow and making it faster again. This evening should be great skiing if you can get out.

I found a freshly renovated skate lane on all the main trails this morning but I was still a little early for the best conditions. Most spots the skating was quite good but others (particularly shady areas) it looked like the groomer had floated over the track without making a dent in the hard, icy base (that's some bullet proof snow!). Still these were isolated spots and I expect the snow got softer and better not too long after I headed for home. The classic tracks hadn't been reset but with the warm sun will get better as the day progresses. Rain for the next few days could change things up... but still lots of snow so we should be able to ski next week.

A report from yesterday's ski: The plan was to lug the bigger camera along and be out all day. These trails were all marked as "fair", so I was curious to see how poor they really were. At 10:30 trail 52 was still a bit icy (not groomed recently), and the long uphill was easier to walk than herringbone in those skis! By 11:00 the waxless skis kicked in and by noon they were really working well. They improved as the day heated up. The uphills were certainly slow but those skis do surprisingly well on downhills in soft snow (better than klister). Snow was clean and deep on 52, 50, and all but a one-meter patch on 51/53. There were no rocks, one teeny bare spot on 51/53, one puddle on 52 and just occasional, insignificant tree dirt. Grooming was really irrelevant due to the temperatures. The fastest snow was out of the tracks. I spotted one other skier near Herridge and two near P19 - It was the slowest but also the most beautiful ski of the year! I don't think "Fair" was a fair assessment of the conditions today.

A little late to start today. Things had already started to soften by the time I got going around noon. Skied a few of the backcountry trails which became somewhat of a chore as the skis would alternately float and then sink... and then float on the soft snowpack. The alternating speeds made it hard to stay upright on the hills but there was lots of soft snow to bail into when things went pear shaped. All the main trails were freshly groomed after the weekend and looked really good. Still the beautiful warm sunshine was a treat and I did my share of "W.R.S." since the "C.C."ing had already expired for the day.

Dodged the crowds today and parked on the Eardley escarpment road (in the snowbank actually) to ski trail 56 up to the Pontiac lookout. Looks like more people walk or snowshoe this trail than ski it but I had the wide boards and the day was gorgeous so I wasn't concerned about the state of the trail. Things were a little icy climbing up but by noon the snow started to soften and a layer of beautiful, velvet corn started to form making the descents magic. Total number of fellow skiers I met - 2... and they were parked in the sun having a picnic which seemed like a pretty good plan.

Another fabulous day, however there were fewer skiers in the Lac Philippe sector than expected. With such warm weather the skating did become quite a slog, particularly the last 3 Km back to the car!! However the Lusk trail and trail 50 (as it parallels the lake) are quite shady. The shady sections were quite fast! It was a perfect day for alternating long periods of sitting in the sun with vigorous bouts of skiing.

The snow is so far surviving beautifully!
The snow on the Taylor lake trail (green) was stunning! See attached photo! It was marked as "fair" on the park website, as was trail 54.
Lusk (54) was in very good shape, with none of the usual flooded sections yet.
Trail 50, marked good to very good, was fine, although rutted (as usual) with snowmobile carnage. This was particularly irritating between trail 55 and Lac Philippe. See final attached photo. The classic tracks between P19 and trail 55 had obviously not been reset for today, and were extremely shallow, sometimes disappearing altogether.

Wow, I was surprised at the great conditions late this morning! P6 was almost full when I got there (around 10:30am) and it wasn't quite as warm as I expected. The klister worked really well in the more shady frozen granular snow, but not quite as good in the sun-exposed soft wet granular snow, particularly south facing slopes. Trail #7 had great coverage and is always a blast to go down. Hard to tell if the parkways were groomed but there were many skiers out there today.

Wow! What a day! We were out for 4 hours and even skied some of that time. I think everyone who skis was in the park today. Demsis had their "thank you" to the skiers and many skiers showed up for the hot chocolate, homemade goodies and the festive chatting in the sun. Conditions were fabulous and there were constant positive comments about "all the grooming" that had been done for today.

Today was memorable for me. It was the first time I've ever "crust cruised", (thank you Craig, Ron and Ken) having always imagined it as something daring and icy that only other people do. I'm totally hooked! It was the most fun I've had on skis in years. Too bad it's so late in the season now. Some areas were starting to get mushy by the time we had checked out 3 or 4 of the swamps along Ridge.

Tomorrow should be another beautiful day!

I should have started earlier and gone to P10! Tomorrow for sure! At 3:00 the Gatineau Parkway was quite fast and controllable in the sun, but the shadier areas were quite hard and for me, at least, difficult to edge. (Probably Ken and Karl would have loved it!) It made my knees ache. I tried both sides of Meech Lake Road, then bailed out and went for a very enjoyable run instead. It was hard to believe the grooming had been thorough in these two locations, because it was so hard packed and didn\'t even seem to be chewed up by earlier skiers. The classic tracks on one side were very shallow, about a third the regular depth.

It was a great day for Crust Cruising (to be known as CCing)(thanx for term to Ken Trischuk), for trail skiing, and for Warm Rock Sitting (to be known as WRSing).

Went from P10 via FP to CP to lookout then via #1 to the pond 1 km past Wolf Ridge - spent 2 hrs CCing the pond surface - returned, via #1, to the pond between #1 & #24 - spent some more time CCing and then some WRSing - then reluctantly returned to P10 via #1, CP, & FP.

The morning tracksetting was excellent deep loose sugar snow leaning to powder in the cold spots. It appeared to go all the way - at least as far as McKinstry. On the way back in the shade the snow stayed unchanged; in the sun it became soft but not mushy; where the sun had been it tended to glaze over. The CCing was unbelievably good firm and fast. The tracks looked excellent everywhere.

Via the ski pole test I estimated that, beside the track, the snow depth was about 60 cm on top of the hard base from the January rains. It’s quite compact and should be slow to melt.

Today was as close as this OF (connu en francais comme VBH) will ever get to paradise.

Beautiful spring conditions. Fresh grooming for the skate lane of the Parkway from P10 to the lookouts. Other places the skating was fine even without new grooming. No new classic tracks but they looked solid regardless. Ridge wasn't groomed but didn't need it as it was smooth and not too rutted. Crust cruising in the woods was excellent if you get up early enough but I expect the snow pack will soften up by 10 or 11am as the sun gains some strength.