Tom V’s report
This has to be one of the latest starts to the ski season we have had in years. But with the heavy snowfall that the Laurentians received a few days ago, we finally had enough to kick start things. Six members made it out for an unofficial outing on Sat at the P’tit Train du Nord on Sat, where they enjoyed a pleasant ski. See the forum for the reports that they and other members made about skiing at the PTdN and other local spots.
When I e-mailed the update message to you all yesterday, I told you that Gai Luron was almost fully open (28 of 32 km), because that was what the Skinet website was reporting. But that turned out to be false — Skinet later updated the status to say that Gai Luron only had 4 of 32 km open! But when reached by phone, the folks at Gai Luron said they expected to be mostly open by Sun. They had enough snow on the ground. The problem was that the heavy snow on Friday had brought down many branches and entire trees across the trails and it was taking them time to clear them.
So 13 of us showed up at Gai Luron on Sun morning expecting most of the trails to be open. But we soon learned that the tree clearing had not gone well and they only had two trails open — the beginner “U” trail (3.1 km) and the intermediate “A” trail (5.1 km). But for most of us, this was our first time out and 8.2 km of trails would be fine.
After waxing and taking the group photo, we set out on the trails (all two of them). It was warmer (-8 C) and less windy than predicted, with overcast skies. Everyone was in the group photo, except for me (I took it) 
and Ron Mc, who for once was spotted as we arrived, instead of when we were leaving. We all started out on the “A” and then did the “U”. Most of the group then followed that up with a third loop on either the “U” or the “A”. The coverage was completely adequate. There were no bare spots and the descents were fully snow covered (no icy spots). The only issue was that there was tree debris in several spots, especially where they had had to cut some trees. But this debris actually looked worse than it was — it only caused one’s skis to slow down once or twice.
and Ron Mc, who for once was spotted as we arrived, instead of when we were leaving. We all started out on the “A” and then did the “U”. Most of the group then followed that up with a third loop on either the “U” or the “A”. The coverage was completely adequate. There were no bare spots and the descents were fully snow covered (no icy spots). The only issue was that there was tree debris in several spots, especially where they had had to cut some trees. But this debris actually looked worse than it was — it only caused one’s skis to slow down once or twice.Most of us did between 11 and 13 kms, and everyone reported being very pleased with their first ski outing of the season. Here’s hoping that this heralds the start of a good ski season from here on in!