25Feb-Pine Road

At 9am the website claimed that 50 had been groomed "1 hour ago" so I headed out to P16.  I think it had been groomed but it certainly had not been in the last hour.  There was 3-5cm of fresh snow but it was still skatable.  At Herridge a snowmobile had been by.  There were no  ruts to speak of and it had been pulling one of those cages.  This improved the skating a fair bit but did nothing for the classic track.  It was like this until the junction with 55.  From 55 to P19 there was one narrow skate lane that was not in good shape.  Grooming is required.  55 had not been groomed.  However on my return trip I passed the heavy groomer coming toward me by the lake.   As it turns out it had come from trail 52.   I assume that by now 55 etc has been groomed.  This means that the section between P16 and Herridge still needs to be groomed.  On the return trip, near Herridge,  I came across a very large tree that has fallen over the trail requiring one to take off the skis to climb over or crawl under.  By now it likely has been cut up and removed.   Things were slow but not as slow as I was prepared for and with the snow in the trees it turned out to be a lovely day.