Saturday, January 29, 2011

Gatineau Park 29Jan - to Fire Tower-FP, Burma, 1b, 24, Ridge

I arrived @ P10 after 8am and was a little surprised how few cars there were.  Heavy equipment had been used to groom and the FP was perfect.  I turned right on Burma, no grooming had been done but it was still ok.  I was surprised when I got to Ridge-no grooming.  I went along to 24-no grooming.  And so it was this way to the Fire Tower.  I was the first skater so it was slow but very enjoyable.  Ridge after McKinstry has been neglected this year.  It was doable but clearly had not been groomed as often as the rest of 1 blue.  Still this part of the trail is worth the effort.

On the return I noticed 24 had been groomed as I went by the first Ridge/24 intersection but Ridge itself was not groomed.  At the next 24/Ridge intersection the grooming on Ridge began but I turned off to 1B-no grooming but by then enough skiers were out that it was nicely packed down. 

But then what did I see?  A large piece of heavy equipment coming toward me on 1B.  This was the machine we had been waiting for but why was it there @ 11am when the park is crowded?  I think its ill-advised to have this piece of equipment out when a) it was too late, the snow was packed down and quite nice b)its dangerous on such a trail when the park is busy because the machine is so wide c)with the skier traffic there is no time for the trail to harden, right away deep gouges were being put into the trail by the skiers.  I'm sure that within an hour it was no better than it was without the grooming.

 I forgot to check Burma on the way back so I'm not sure if they did that later in the morning?

All in all a pretty good day, it was tougher than normal but well worth it. 

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