The final fizzled snowstorm up north was our April Fool’s joke coming right at the end of the season. I didn’t want to make light of the season by posting yesterday- that would have felt cruel.

Quick retrospective

• The Coronavirus pandemic created a stampede on purchase of outdoors equipment, including cross-country skis. Prospects that this could prove to be an unusual season were borne out anecdotally. Ski touring centers scrambled to position themselves to be ready. But were plans and economics upset by travel restrictions or staffing issues?
• A slow start to the XC season yielded to a great mid-season for many of us. But the fantastic February for downstate NY and the mid-Hudson region obscured the fact that the snowpack was short of norms in the north country. Barkeater Trail Alliance says it’s pretty much over for most of the backcountry as well. Reasons for the fast-disappearing snowpack are covered in a post on the Facebook page ‘Northeast skiology‘
• The entire World Cup racing season seemed weird. Norway took a month off from the circuit, and got so nervous that races had to find other venues late in the season. Weather wasn’t so wintry at the World Championships: national teams cut up their uniforms into shorts and short sleeves to race in 50-degree weather in Obserstdorf Germany.
• On a high note, Jessie Diggins won the crystal globes for both overall and distance points.

Final state of the touring centers

A late blow of snow put a few inches across the north country, but since most centers were already closed, and ground was largely bare, it didn’t do any good. The only areas where extra XC skiing might be possible are some public parks and trails in far northern Vermont or New York, and the trails at Mt van Hoevenberg where a few manmade loops plus some flatland with a touch-up of new snow are open.

As an aside, at this time of year I usually find some touring centers basically abandon their website at the season end without saying goodbye formally. The naughty list of season-enders that left their last post up this year are:

• Bear Notch
• Cascade
• Grafton Trails

For what it’s worth, ‘State of the touring centers‘ is updated. NOHRSC servers seem to be offline today, so here’s a graphic of snowfall for the past 48 hours in the northeast. The lightest blue is for 1″. No area seemed to get more than 4″, which matches observations posted by ski areas.

Yep, it’s time to clean those skis and give them a coat of wax for storage.