XC Skiing - Sort of...

After the first skiable snowfall of the year, Holly and I decided to get out and give it a try. The snow had fallen with temps above freezing, with a short period of freezing rain afterwards, and then the temperature dropped. All of this meant that we had to go someplace that had been groomed, or we'd be skiing on crusty icy crap and breaking through into the powder below.

We decided to try Camp Saratoga, part of the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park, north of Saratoga Springs. It's groomed regularly, and was reportedly groomed yesterday. Great idea, but there were at least two problems here. First, the grooming was done while the snow was warm and soft, and then the temperature dropped. So instead of icy crust, we found icy tracks and crunchy everything in between. Second, as the temperature dropped, the winds howled behind that cold front, dropping pine cones everywhere, but especially in the icy tracks. Lots of abrupt unexpected speed changes, especially on the normally very tame downhills. After only about a mile of this, we decided to give up and try somewhere else that hadn't been groomed, thinking it couldn't be any worse.

We next found ourselves on NY50, at the Old Gick Farm parcel belonging to the WWP&P. There were only a few footprints here, and no ski tracks. The wind was still howling across the open fields, and breaking trail through the crust was laborious at best, though the snow underneath was very good. We did a short loop here, and called it a day. We need some more snow before we can realistically ski close to home.