Mistakes picking sticks - but what odds...

Beautiful weekend to get out and ski. Lots of fresh snow out there to be had. Unfortunately in my haste I probably made a rookie mistake and picked the wrong techniques on each of the days. Saturday was cold and sunny and the tracks seemed to have firmed up nicely from the first grooming. Perfect day for a skate ski... but I picked the classic boards. Not a big loss though as the classic tracks were equally good and I did a nice long loop to check out much of the parkway and Ridge road. All of which are in good shape with just a few thin spots here and there. For the most part its easy enough to step around the trouble spots so clean sailing all day.

Rare sunshine and snowflakes... where were these things coming from?
On Sunday it was much warmer and not snowing (at my house) so I decided to load the skate skis into the truck. Of course as I drove up to the park it began to snow (hard) and soon enough there was lots and lots of soft wet snow. Perfect day for a classic ski... but I was commited to skating at that point. Ah well, off I went down the Pine road past Herridge and almost out to Lac Phillippe. Skating in the soft snow was hard work but I wasn't in a rush and I'll take the extra snow without complaints. The weatherman had called for rain on Tueday which likely would have thinned out the skiing almost completely. Thankfully he's revised his forecast and it looks like more snow is on the way. Soon the thin spots will be a thing of the past.
no more trucks...
On a positive note I did get out Sunday morning to catch my cousin Bob carry the Olympic Torch. Knowing only the "road" he would be running on (and it was a long road with several runners) I managed to luck out and catch him at the end of his run passing off to the next runner. Good job Bob! You didn't stumble and drop the torch in the snowbank or anything ;-)