XC Skiing - Rockwood State Forest

Woke up to howling winds and a dusting of snow locally, but not enough to do anything with. Checked snowfall reports and saw that Gloversville got 2" and Caroga Lake 3", and Rockwood SF already still had 8-10" on the ground. Seemed like skiing might at least be possible, if not fantastic.

Drove up and pulled into the parking area that was covered with glare ice from all the rain and melting that went on. Trails were definitely crunchy underneath, but powdery on top, so it could have been pretty good. Unfortunately, any prior ski tracks were now icy ruts, as were the foot-wide snowshoe trenches that were pretty common. Even worse were the snowmobile tracks that weren't even supposed to be there. We tried to mostly ski off to one side off all these, and avoided the bigger downhills, which would have been treacherous. Found one trail that hadn't been touched, and followed that out and back for the best skiing of the day.

We're really hoping that Fulton County continues to groom this area, or at least roll it flat. It's kind of a mess at the moment, and could really benefit from a foot of snow or some flattening out, or preferably both.