Back from vacation

I wish I could tell you that this is on the Hockleycrest ski trails; this is the place I spent the past week skiing on beautiful trails with beautiful snow. That's the Carter Notch Inn at Jackson New Hampshire, a great B&B situated right on the trails. This was taken Wednesday morning, after a 4 inch snowfall Tuesday. Another 6 inches fell on Friday, so conditions there are fantastic.
Meanwhile, I see we've had a bit of new snow back home too. I'll be out on the trails tomorrow, doing what I can to make them better for skiing. Looks like we may get a bit more snow Sunday night into Monday, so things should be improving.

On Vacation

For the next week, I will be away in Jackson, New Hampshire, cross-country skiing in the White Mountains. If you want to see how the pros do it, have a look at their website www.jacksonxc.org
There will be no postings of conditions here, and no grooming of the trails until next Sunday at the earliest.
Based on the weather forecast, I don't expect much change in conditions here, as there doesn't appear to be any significant snowfall coming in the next week.

Saturday January 24

There has been no change since yesterday. Current temperature is -5, with a bit of fog. The high will be close to 0, and there is a chance of some flurries or freezing drizzle.
We need more snow.

Friday January 23 - No Change

Snow and trail conditions are basically unchanged since Tuesday. We have an ice crust base with about 1 cm of soft snow on top. Control is difficult on downhill sections of trail.
We need at least 5 cm of new snow to bring us back to truly enjoyable skiing.

Tuesday January 20 - Good News / Bad News

I've been out skiing to assess the trail and snow conditions. The Good News is that Sunday's mini-thaw did not totally wipe out our snow cover. We still have complete coverage, but the base is an icy crust. Sunday evening's snowfall left us about 1 cm of soft powder on top of the ice.
Some parts of the system are still quite good skiing, especially those where nobody has walked. Hills are icy and will be difficult. The Mainline trail, wherever it follows the main Bruce Trail, has been badly trampled, leaving a very lumpy base which is not sufficiently covered by the new snow. The Mainline, unfortunately, is the trail you need to use to access virtually all the other trails.
So, unless you are an expert skier with very good downhill technique, I would recommend you not ski here until we get another snowfall of at least 5 cm.
I went over the Mainline and Harmony trails with a scraper this afternoon, to knock the tops off the high spots and hopefully fill in some of the low spots. This has improved things somewhat, but we still need some new snow before the skiing will be enjoyable again.

Monday Jan. 19

Yesterday did some damage to the trails. The temperature remained at +1 most of the day, with a mix of drizzle and wet snow. The snow on the trails settled and became saturated with moisture. Only in late afternoon did the temperature drop to below freezing and some really nice fluffy snow began. This will have helped, but I don't know yet whether there was enough new snow to restore the surface conditions.
At this point I would estimate that conditions are only fair.

Sunday January 18

Skiing has deteriorated a bit since yesterday. It is currently +1 and light wet snow is falling. There may have been a bit of rain overnight. Some parts of the trails are definitely feeling a bit icy this morning.
Things may improve as the temperature drops and snow flurries continue.