The LagChilada challenge is a opportunity to ride all the mountain bike trails at Maplelag in one ride/day. The challenge can be ridden any day during the dirt season. We have t-shirts available for those that complete the challenge. The challenge is open to everyone. Trail pass or season pass required to participate. The course is set on Strava. Total mileage is just under 25 miles and features around 2500ft of climbing!
Heading to the start of the LagChilada!
The challenge starts with the new loop “Feeling Lucky” singletrack loop. Look for black and pink signs at key intersections. Upon completion of Feeling Lucky, take a right on the starter loop following all the sport/comp/expert/marathon signs and marked singletrack routes. After the “Bear Pass” singletrack, take a right and head on Bullhead Lake trail to access the Goat Ranch rd (county rd 110) Take a right and continue to the pavement, hiway 26. Take a right and look for access to Bootleg singletrack loop. Upon completion of the Bootleg loop, double back on hiway 26 and county road 110. Enter on Bullhead lake trail connector again to double back to main loop and continue on taking all the marked singletrack segments.
Key intersections are marked with black signs. T-shirt for completing the LagChilada
After the start of “Bjorp’s” singletrack, take a right where marked to access the trail across 110 “North Loup Gnar” riding this segment east to west. Upon completion of North Loup Gnar, cross 110 again and pick up Bjorp’s. Shortly after, look for access to Sukkerwest. A connector trail is used to complete Sukkerwest. Use connector to get back on to Bjorps. Follow rest of trail to Twin Lakes, back across to complete!
Special belt buckles for doing a double LagChilada!!
Kids Comp racers lined up for the first race of the day, Laddies Loppet 2023.Thanks everyone that came for the final race in the Minnesota Mountain Bike Series. Thanks to all the volunteers, race officials and support personal that helped make it a great day despite the warm temperatures.
We are excited to be maintaining our tradition of hosting the Minnesota Mountain Bike Series race, the Laddies Loppet on Sunday of Labor Day weekend. This will be year 33 we have hosted the race making it one of the longest running events in the Midwest. Registration for the race can be found on the MNMBS website.
Start area for all races and access point to course for pre riding. Registration is in picnic shelter just to the left of the photo!
Hard to believe we are already in the middle of July and half of the summer has passed! July has been unseasonable cold, and up until a few weeks ago where we have received nearly 3″ of rain the past two weeks, very dry. Overall it has been a beautiful summer with some fantastic sunsets, starry skies and not too many fallen trees on the trails.
One of the many camping spaces available for the bike race weekend. The warming house in the background has been touched up and will be used as registration area for the bike race.
The weekend will obviously be a bit different this year with no lodge and the cross country race will be held on Sunday, like the other races in the series. There will be no short track race this year. We will not have any lodging available, at this point, but will allow camping like previous years. We are still working out details for food trucks and concessions but either way plan on a fun day of mountain biking and family fellowship, while racing on Maplelag’s signature singletrack.
Brant cabin renovation. Future store!
The biggest news to report is the start of remodeling on some of the cabins. This past week we began work in the Brant cabin to be used as a day lodge like it was this past winter. We plan to have a store and hope to have some items to sell by Labor Day bike race weekend. The store will feature the more popular clothing and we have plans to bring in some new items made by local artists. There will be no meal service at this time. It will be a work in progress. As difficult as it was, and we know for some of our guests as well, to change the look of the storied Brant cabin, moving forward we feel this action fits best our vision of the model moving forward considering all the parameters in our thought process.
Custom Maplelag coffee mugs crafted by local artist Mary Laabs.
Later this summer we will be remodeling in the cabins of Lapland, Candy Store, Six Swedes and also both cabooses. The above mentioned cabins we plan to rent for the upcoming winter season, possibly earlier depending on how construction goes. Since we are doing many of these projects “in house” it takes a bit more time but also allows us to make changes on the fly and craft and create as we think best. The above cabins are also on the slate to have a new paint job! Regarding taking reservations and booking these spaces, we will have more information available later this summer once we feel comfortable doing so based on the progress. We are doing much of the work ourselves as we mentioned.
Jonell painting in her future office!
We want to thank everyone again for their love, prayers and steadfast support. The next phase of Maplelag will be very different and change can be hard but we have to do what we feel is best for our interests and inspiration to best serve our guests. We look forward to seeing folks at Maplelag again soon! Enjoy the rest of the summer and we will update next month with hopefully a favorable progress report.
Another beautiful summer sunset on Little Sugarbush.
Girls leaders, Section 8 Nordic Ski Championships, February 8th, 2023.
A fantastic two days for the Section 8 Nordic Ski Championships. Incredible weather and racing. Thanks for all those that helped make it a great two days and to all the skiers competing hard. Photos and results posted on Skinnyski.com
