Fresh snow and sunny skies
We had about a week of very nice weather early in February with a few nice (small) dumps of snow and that made the backcountry skiing a real treat. I did a mini-tour of Lac Meech on a particularly unusual day. At one moment it would be dark clouds and snowing only to change to blue skies 5 minutes later…. And then back again to snow 5 minutes after that. Made for some tricky wax selection for my skis but I managed okay and the fresh powder snow made for great skiing so I wasn’t too concerned about it.
Groomers being kept busy
This past weekend was Loppet time and once again they had tricky weather conditions to deal with. A couple of days of unseasonably warm weather just before race weekend meant the groomers would be hard at work to prepare race tracks. Of course by race day the thermometer had swung 20 degrees down the scale (coupled with some strong breezes) to provide for chilly racing. The courses this year had to be modified again but only a couple of the sections had to be abandoned due to loss of snow on the hills. Hard work on the grooming made for fast tracks and it wasn’t a parkway race which was nice to see. I headed out on Sunday morning to chase the skate race as has been my custom. Unfortunately I discovered (though I expected as much) my secret shortcut had not been groomed and was an icy mess. This meant my well planned route to jump ahead of the races was dashed and some fast thinking was required. Came up with a new plan pretty quickly though which – while it meant a little more standing around (and less skiing on my part) – seemed to work out well in the end. The skiing I did manage was on really nice tracks which the groomers had clearly worked hard to churn up from the flash frozen ice. Good job on their part. The hard packed surface meant a fast race as well with a pack of 5 storming the finish line in a little over 2 hours. I took a small collection of photos – HERE
Leaders cruising through 10k
A day after the races I took a student we have working with us out for a ski in the park. Conditions were again pretty cool (at -12C) but the main trails had been very well groomed so we had a good ski out to Western cabin and back. My student is from Lyon, France and he was quite pleased to announce that he had never done anything outside in such cold weather before - a real adventure for him. Didn’t have the heart to tell him that – at -12C – it wasn’t even really that cold for an Ottawa winter.
Armand meets the groomer
Conditions continue to warm up during the days but the skiing is still great. We had another big storm swing just south of us but the snow here is reasonable. Sadly, without a little more snow, I expect it will disappear fairly quickly as we move through March. Ah well, fingers crossed for a late season storm which is always potentially out there.
Falling Flakes
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