Somehow, January through March of 2024 managed to slip past unrecorded. We had almost no natural cross-country ski conditions. Mostly, I hiked. For a couple of weeks, we had usable cover on our snowmaking loop. That melted out by late March. Then we had a devastating heavy snowstorm in early April, that choked the trails with fallen trees and branches.
The snowmaking loop was a precious resource. It's tedious, going around the same scant kilometer over and over, but it's still a lot better than using an indoor machine. For a few days we even had enough cover to venture beyond it, but that went away. In the brief time that we had the snowmaking loop, we had some ferocious winds that covered our fragile track with twigs and pine cones. I don't mean just a few. I mean a dense minefield of grabby hazards underfoot.
Last year was the first year for snowmaking at Wolfeboro Cross-Country. The crew responsible for operating the system also covers the local rope tow hill under a different jurisdiction. Of course cross-country was the lower priority. And then, so they told us, humidity conditions weren't favorable, even when the air was cold. The net result was that we had no trails to offer the public during any of the high-earning periods of the season. This winter was supposed to be better, but they've spent every brief cold spell so far on snow for the rope tow hill. Maybe things will get better...
Snow cover so far in this early phase of winter 2024-'25 is inadequate to open trails in Wolfeboro, but I had enough to ski around the woods at my house today. Nothing in the world feels like cross-country skiing. We'll see what the rest of winter brings after tonight's rain.
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