Update: Be sure to read Jody’s comment at the end of this post.
I waited for it to warm up, and by 2:30 pm it was -14°C at Boulton creek in PLPP. Considering JT’s Trip Report where he started out in -27, I had tropical weather.
Whiskey jack(before grooming)
I stuck the thermometer in the snow and it indicated the snow temperature was -20, making for another easy waxing day.
Whiskey jack had a cm of fresh snow on top of the grooming, and my mantracker skills told me that about 10 skiers and two rabbits had been up the trail today.
Skiers on Tyrwhitt as the sun dips below the mountains
With a net elevation of 200 metres, climbing Whiskey jack is a good way to get warmed up. At the top, I turned right(south) and headed towards Tyrwhitt. Unfortunately I had just lost the sun as I arrived at the meadows, and it seemed to be a whole lot colder now. Tyrwhitt had new grooming and my skis moved noticeably faster on the new tracksetting.
Tracksetter James and the Pisten-Bully.
I only skied to the end of the meadows at which point I turned around and retraced my steps. Coming down Whiskey jack I met Tracksetter James as he was making his first of three passes. I assume we’ll also see new tracksetting on Packers and upper Pocaterra by tomorrow. Let’s hope that James doesn’t enter any of our contests!
The first pass with the Pisten-Bully smooths the trail and lays down corduroy only, no tracks. It’s a lot of fun descending Whiskey Jack on wall-to-wall corduroy!
The first pass with the groomer leaves fresh corduroy in its wake. Notice the tracksetter is lifted.
Hope you are back to pistening real soon:)
There were some issues with the snowcat not too long after Bob saw the Pisten Bully and it is still off to the side of Whiskey Jack at the new culvert close to the top. The single pass is all that was made so there is no new track setting on this trail (or Packers) and there are a lot of snowmobile tracks for the full length of the trail. We are going to try to get the the cat off the trail again tomorrow morning but there will be no new grooming for Saturday morning for sure, and possibly not for Sunday either. All the trails in the south end should still be in great shape for the weekend, and other than Whiskey Jack the rest of the park should be in decent shape as well.