In the end, no Beaver Tails skied on Wednesday night, but maybe we should have!
In the update message I sent at noon on Wed, I said I was optimistic about skiing at Mount Royal that evening. The forecast was for snow to cover the layer of freezing rain that fell overnight. I even got a first-hand report from Jessica B that she saw skiers on the trails at 11 am. But then instead of snow during the afternoon, we got a steady freezing drizzle to add to the layer of ice we already got from the freezing rain overnight. When I called the park their recording said that the trails were untracked and icy. In the face of the drizzle, even Mickey passed on his usual Wed afternoon ski. I sent a message via twitter that I did not recommend skiing that night.
I resolved to go to the mountain all the same, to walk or skate. When I arrived at 6:30 pm, I learned that after they had recorded their phone message, they had in fact tracked the trails that morning. And then in the late afternoon, a light snow began falling. Several lycra-clad competitive-type skiers from the usual Skimco group, as well as a younger bunch from the Université de Montréal x-c ski team, took to the trails. With the little bit of fresh snow on the tracks, things did not look so bad. Me, Ray M and Ken were the only ones who were there at 7 pm and we opted to go fo a walk up to and around the cross. We inspected the condition of the trail where it crossed the road and the tracks were nicely snow-covered. We observed some skiers going down the two descents after the ski trail goes around the cross and they seemed to be doing fine.
None of us skied ourselves, so we can only judge from what we saw of, and heard from, the other skiers. With the tracking of the trails and that bit of fresh snow, it looks like the conditions ended up being not so bad. It was hard to predict.
The lesson is, if you really want to ski, just show up with your skis and try out the trails before giving up on them!
Royal Reporter Tom