It’s always tough to decide where the club should go skiing when the conditions are poor on the island and the reports from the off-island ski centres are decidedly mixed. But when I saw that the trails at Gai Luron were all open and groomed (except for the single-track loops), I had a good feeling about it. I remembered that several times in the past we have gone to Gai Luron and been 
surprised at how good the trails were when we had similarly poor conditions in the region. So Gai Luron it was.
I arrived a few minutes before the 10 am meeting time. I wondered if I would be the only one there from the club. The weather was certainly favourable. It was sunny, no wind and -9 C, which was warmer than the forecast -12 C. There was also a cm or so of fresh fluffy snow that had fallen overnight. It did not look like enough to make a real difference, but with cross-country skiing every little bit helps. All the trails had been groomed again that morning. Gai Luron has a high-quality grooming machine
that can grind up the crusty ice to a fine-granular consistency.
It turned out we were 12 BTers, including one fellow Steve who had not been out with the club for 30 years! We were 11 skiers and one member on snowshoes. (I forgot to mention in the update message that snow-shoeing would be an excellent option!) We put on blue wax and set out. The trails showed little sign of the warm and wet weather we had last Thu. Some of us had just been there the previous Sun, so we could compare the snow quality. If one looked closely at the snow, one could see that it was a bit more granular this week. That made the grip just slightly less better than the week before. But overall the skiing was about as good, with slightly more comfortable temperatures. The downhills had plenty of loose snow to snowplow and control your speed.
After we were done, I surveyed the members I saw and they all agreed that Gai Luron the conditions were a lot better that expected. They had done it again — Gai Luron had delivered excellent skiing — and snowshoeing — on a day when many might have thought it was not worth going out. Some of us celebrated the après-ski at the casse-croute across the road with their home-made pea soup.