Another day to ski. Ther weather forecasters had been calling for copious amounts of snow in Muskoka due to snow squalls, but … not much yet. A cm or so was all we got. I was glad actually, too much snow would mean more trail breaking, and maybe a re-occurrence of slush formation on the lakes and ponds.
We met at the Hardy Lake parking lot and we headed off across the highway again. The base was solid, no breaking through anywhere. The 1-2 cm of fresh snow on the surface took away any icy areas, and made conditions absolutely perfect, well, almost, except for periodic “stickyness”. Temperatures were still too mild, just around the freezing mark. It felt colder due to the strong west winds. Fortunately the winds eventually “dried out” the fresh snow and conditions improved.
We followed the usual groups of ponds, trying to take slightly different route between them. We looped around into the top of Pigeon Lake and began the return route, through to the “L” shaped pond, however today we climbed the open ridge we saw the other day when skiing up the valley. Nice route.
We continued through the other ponds and lake, negotiating a steep drop down into the pond with the heronry. Skiing north from it, we took a route more easterly, and came across another group of erratics. I have crossed this area so many times, but had never seen this cluster of rock chunks. A few pics and we continued on, back to the highway.
Good ski!
Now will we see more snow? I hope those days with clear blue skies return soon! Conditions are close to perfect for off-trail skiing, considering our average of 4km per hour, and at no time were we pushing it.
A link to some pictures and a map of the route
https://www.flickr.com/gp/76927845@N07/084p9M