A gorgeous day in the woods. Morning started out frosty with temps in the teens. Did warm up to the mid 30’s but the snow held out great and a ski on the classic trails at dusk found great skiing with a just few minor icy spots. Snow more powdery than I thought. Using rock skis. The lake was packed this morning and tomorrow evening we will comb and set track on the side. The loop is around 3.5km going in and out of the bays and pockets. No other grooming today as we are preserving the snow for any possible warm weather and did some shoveling in the start area to enhance the base. We will spend most of the day tomorrow shoveling on the thin areas. Skate skiing is very good with Skaters Waltz and the extension the best skiing. North Loup also open for skating and classic skiers heading up there as well. Classic skiing has been nice with the snow that we have.
All 64km of trail open. 15km groomed for skate. Around 15km of trail tracked for classic skiing. The remaining 34km is packed and skier tracked (no skating please). The base is thin for sure but setting up and skiing very well for how low snow we have. There are definitely thin and rough spots but overall people have been pleased with the conditions and reports are generally better than expected. We are starting to see a few local skiers.
We will not be setting any new tracks until more new snow and not resetting the current tracks until more new snow. The tracks that exist are as good as they can be and re-grooming will bring up more forest matter and take away the hardness. The skate lanes will be touched up as needed. Now that we have a base of snow and snow on the sides to work with, the trails should hold out just fine during any warm spell. The base is 2-4″ and snow depth is around 4-7″. Total snowfall this season including snow from November is 12″. We will be grooming on the lake for both skate and classic for the ski camp this weekend.
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