Activity

13 Charleswood Ski Club members are skiing at Turtle Mountain this weekend. On Saturday, we were fortunate that the temperature was just below zero to near zero, so the icy snow was softish in many places. Where it was hard-icy, it was treacherous.
Thursday’s grooming was a half trail width, which including one classic track. The classic tracks were well-formed in almost all places. In some places the skate track (snowplow track, herringbone track) was icy sugar. In other places it was small ice balls.
Two of us were skate skiing. The skate track is usually just barely (or just barely not) wide enough between the sets of classic tracks. The best section was Dunseth Trail south of the Adam Lake Cabin + Canntastic + a bit of John Lake Trail north towards the James Lake Trail. (No classic tracks … skate, fat bike, snowshoe only.) It had 1 cm of fresh snow on top of the fairly level transformed snow. The next best section was most of the Adam Lake Trail and most of the Intermediate Trail … again, some fresh snow on top of a fairly level skate track.
I do not understand why the park grooms two classic tracks in places where the James Lake Trail is very narrow. The resulting 1 metre wide skate track perturbed me, and of course my Vs whacked the classic track on one side.
Bottom line: Very good to fair conditions.