Trails are open. A fantastic day on the trails! A beautiful start with sunshine, frosty trees, and no wind. Temperature down to 11 last night setting up the grooming from yesterday. By mid afternoon, warmer temperature and sun softening the snow just a little bit to make for really nice early “Spring” conditions. When we say spring conditions, we mean the snow has transformed from its original state to a more sugary granular snow.
When the snow totally breaks down, it turns to “corn” snow. During spring conditions ideal scenario is it freezes at night, warms up during the day to soften the deck. In this scenario, typically the best skiing is from 10am-2pm but can fluctuate. If possible, if skiers are off the trail by mid afternoon, this allows us to have the best material to groom with and have the best conditions possible the next day! Most often we groom later afternoon or early evening during spring skiing season.
Morning track grooming on Rootin Tootin, North Loup and Bullhead Bootleg and skate lanes refreshed on Skaters Waltz and North Loup skate lane. Grooming bringing up drier/powdery/silky snow and taking off the hardness edge. Yesterday all other trails were groomed except Island Lake. Trails setting up again overnight but should soften as the day passes. We plan to groom Island lake later in the week but people have been skiing it, still very skiable. Just Ski.
The snow has transformed after a warm day on Monday followed by a hard freeze Tuesday. The conditions of the snow along with our deep base, bodes well for what looks to be warmer days on the weekend as we have transitioned to spring conditions. For us, Spring Skiing is some of our favorite skiing of the year! We have a great base of seasoned snow going back to mid November. The bottom four inches of the compacted base acting like a refrigerant. We look to freeze nicely each night during this little warm spell which is key. Moving forward, with spring conditions, generally the best time to ski, provided it warms up to 35-38 degrees, is from 10am to 2pm.
We will continue grooming daily, as conditions allow, working on select trails each day to have fresh tracks and always try to have the main trails Sukkerbusk and Sap Run in best condition possible.
Skating on Skaters Waltz, the extension loops, North Loup, Single Green, Kristin’s Kutoff and Eira Bikwadinaa Hill. All other trails are tracked for classic skiing. (Please no skating on classic trails) Sukkerbusk is a great starter trail for classic which feeds the outer trails and crosses most of the inner trails providing a good “lay of the land”.
We have also have a loop on Little Sugarbush Lake “Lumi’s Loop” with a skate lane and track on each side. This is a fun 1.2km loop that makes for a fun ski at sunrise and sunset and under the full moon! Groomed 2/10
43″ of snow so far this season. We have been grooming daily on the entire trail system since mid November, only missing a few days.
Thank you to everyone that comes to ski and supports the trails with season pass purchases. Day passes can be purchased here. A MN State trail pass is NOT required to ski at Maplelag. The Maplelag trails are self funded by operations with no grants or state funding. 18 and under day pass is $15, use the summer trail pass option.
Ski rentals are available at a rate of $25 for adults and $15 for 18 and under. Snowshoe rental is $10 a person. There is no charge for children 6 and under.
Snowfall YTD at 43″ Compacted base on trail 5-8″. Total snowfall in February 4″. January at 15″. December: 17″. Snowfall in November: 7″. October precipitation (rain) at 2.7″ and around 1″ in September. Total precipitation ytd (rain) at Maplelag is at 25.12″.
