We lost it all on Friday. The heavy rains came down, the snow that made it possible to groom trails on the lakes turned to standing water, and the snow on our other trails mostly melted. Talk about discouraging, because we’ve worked so hard to make good trails out of mediocre conditions.
BUT, hurray! We are working our way back to skiing! Quinn has groomed trails on Summer Home Road and Campground. Quinn skied on it this evening and wasn’t thrilled about Summer Home. You will have to remove your skis to cross the culvert area in the big dip on Summer Home, and there are some “stop your skis” rocks, he said. Needs continuing snow — we will get there. Campground, on the other hand, is fairly good because of all the snow we hauled to it.
We haven’t been able to redo the lovely, long lake trail we had on East Bearskin because of snow/water slush. We’ll be keeping an eye on that every day until it hardens up again. However, they were able to groom some fairly nice ski trails on the south shore of Aspen Lake.
On the Golden Eagle side, they’ve groomed the Flour Lake Campground trail and added some ski trails back on Flour Lake.
Is it as good as our usual outstanding ski trails? Nope. Is it probably the best skiing on natural snow still available in Minnesota? Yes, it likely is. And we’re happy to say, people seem to be having a pretty good time. We have snow, we have winter conditions, and the temperatures are pleasant enough to get out and enjoy the world.
The weather reports indicate that we are returning to more typical winter conditions, with small snowfalls every day. The forecast looks promising for snow in the future. We’ll never catch up now to the massive amounts of snow we had in 2022 and 2023, but getting adequate snow would be a wonderful surprise. We will continue to do everything we can dream-up to create a good winter experience for our guests.
Aspen ski trail with tracks and corduroy 2.11.2024
Trail update: unexpectedly hard, warm rain last night made a bit of a mess of things. Conditions deteriorated today. The trails are not good at the moment. It was a very sudden turn of events today for a trail system that previously survived quite a few setbacks so far this winter.
We are waiting for the coming temperature drop and possible snow tonight to reassess and come up with our next plan. We will keep you posted. We managed to keep our skiing going through some pretty frustrating conditions and we will continue to think creatively.
Meanwhile, this is a great opportunity to take some winter hiking adventures. A Rose Falls hike has been a popular destination this week, as well as Honeymoon Bluff.
We’ve never had a winter like this before, so on a daily basis we keep wondering what happens next? So far our trails are staying remarkably good. Guests seem happy and for us, it’s super important that you leave here feeling like you had an enjoyable time. In spite of this weirdo winter, most of our guests have had great winter fun.
We’re working at making that happen. Both Bearskin and Golden Eagle have been regularly out grooming early or in the middle of the night to maintain the trail base. Last week we bought the world’s most humongous Otter sled (seriously the size of a truck bed!) that we can use to haul snow from the lake and to the trails if needed. Quinn and Bob experimented today with their unique methodology — use the snowblower on the lake to blow snow into the sled, use the snowmobile to pull the loaded sled up to the ski trails, shovel the snow onto the trails, then return to the lake and do it all again. At this point we do still have a solid trail base, but they’re confident that if snow thins out in places then they have a plan to keep it going.
This week will be a bit like March skiing. Afternoon temperatures are predicted to be mid-30s. So use the usual spring plan and get out skiing in the morning. The snow may soften up in mid-afternoon — or maybe not. It’s been OK. Later afternoon or night skiing seems to be staying decent too. Quinn and Kate generally ski around 5 PM, while Bob has been going out on the night trails with a headlamp after supper. So far the trails are holding up well. Bob reports that the trails at 8 PM are fast!
Overall, the assessment from guests has been that we are maintaining good skiing. Almost everybody seems to be having fun and almost everyone is rebooking, so thanks! We so appreciate the vote of confidence.
The forecast looks like the warmer days end soon, and we revert to more normal winter temperatures. The radar map for the entire US has shown minimal moisture everywhere, but starting next week it looks like moisture may be circulating again. We promise Mother Nature we will not complain about having too much snow ever again.
Grooming the lake trail in a strange fog on Sunday
Hore frost on Loon Island on the lake
Sunset on the day of the weird fog. Photo by Addi Didier.
There’s not much cross-country skiing in all of Minnesota right now, but we’re happy to report that we’re skiing on the Central Gunflint Trail System. We certainly don’t have the snow we are used to accumulating by now, but our trails are in so much better shape than in most of the state.
Although we haven’t had the big dump of snow that usually characterizes our early winters, we do seem to be accumulating more snow on a daily basis, inch by inch. At this point Bearskin has about 20 K of groomed trails with tracks and corduroy, about half on lakes and half in the woods.The Golden Eagle side of the trail system has also created about 10K of lake trails and 2 K of forest trails, with more to come soon. Of course, both sides of the trail system are available to you when you stay at either resort or buy a Central Gunflint Trail System ski pass. We are all working very hard to make good skiing out of this snow.
The groomers have been out almost every day and overall, people are fairly pleased to be able to ski. Quinn and Kate, who are both high performance skiers, have been skiing Summer Home and Campground almost every afternoon to check the conditions. They’ve been putting in a lot of K and report that the trails may have a few thin spots, but for the most part conditions are good.
This area is in a cold snap now, a classic January freeze, but we’re about to warm up again. We have snow in the forecast almost every day — still no giant snowstorms, but the daily accumulations do add up. Quinn and Bob are thinking that the next trail to open may be Bear Cub, which always gets more snow than the trails at lower elevations. They’re keeping an eye on it and will go out as soon as we amass enough more snow.
There’s a lot of talk on the Gunflint Trail these days about voo-doo. 😂 We had such an incredibly overwhelming amount of snow during the past two years that at least 3 resorts on the Gunflint Trail (including us) spent huge sums of money on additional new snow removal equipment. Four ski areas took delivery on new or new-to-them Pisten Bully groomers. What’s the old Yiddish proverb? “Man plans, God laughs.” Yep. We’re not worried. We’ve been here long enough to know that one of these days soon we will get pummeled with snow and meanwhile, the skiing is still pretty darn good.
We have a limited number of cabin openings available next week. Come up and ski with us! Give us a call at 218-388-2292 or email stay@bearskin.com and we will help you make a plan.
This is one for the record books — we groomed for the first time this winter season on January 6, 2024. We finally got snow, with lots more to to come.We weren’t honestly too worried, but we were a bit disoriented by it all. We’ve spent many of the past winters whining and complaining about our October and November early snowstorms. This year taught us all a lesson about early snow — we will appreciate it next year.
Our first snowfall was just enough to get skiing on the Central Gunflint Trail System started. Bearskin and Golden Eagle have both groomed extensive loops on the lakes with our Tidd-Tech snowmobile groomers.(Our lakes are safe for skiers, don’t worry — these long, narrow lakes froze early and guests have traversed the lakes extensively with skates while we waited for snow.) In addition, Quinn has been able to use the Pisten Bully to groom Campground and Summer Home Trails.The land trails have a skate deck but no tracks yet — he needs just a little more snow to add tracks.
Bearskin groomed trails on lake and land as of 1.72024Golden Eagle groomed lake trail system
We will continue to keep grooming these trails and adding to them on a regular basis.It’s snowing this afternoon and we have a fairly substantial amount of snow predicted for this evening, as well as more snow in the forecast for the rest of the week. It has certainly been a slow start to winter, but now it’s happening.
We get asked almost daily how our cross-country ski resort business has been doing without any snow so far.Thank you so much for asking, but don’t worry about us. We are busy and have had very few cancellations. Bearskin is lucky to have a loyal following of very energetic guests who made the most out of the past few weeks of ice with no snow cover. Check out our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/BearskinLodge/ to see video and pictures of the memorable activities our guests enjoyed. They will reminisce about those unusual experiences for years to come. We’d prefer our normal snow, of course, but the “wild ice” weeks were pretty cool.
We will keep you posted as we get more snow and continue to open trails. We are looking forward to getting back to “real winter” on the Gunflint Trail!
And hey, if you come up to ski then stop in to see our friends at Trail Center or at the Hungry Jack Lodge restaurant. Both businesses have created ice skating opportunities just outside their restaurants that will be super fun after enjoying a great Gunflint Trail meal. See you soon.
We don’t have much snow yet, maybe around 2 inches, but we are all ready for winter. It takes a great deal of year-’round work to maintain the beautiful skiing on the Central Gunflint Ski System, and it’s all done. Now we just need more snow.
Both Bearskin and Golden Eagle will be grooming with new, state-of-the-art Pisten Bully groomers. For those of you who know the Golden Eagle PB story from last year, all is well for 2023-2024. Their replacement PB has been delivered and is ready to go.
Unloading the Bearskin and Golden Eagle Pisten Bully groomers.
Our Pisten Bully spent the summer in Jordan, MN at Kassbohrer getting new track-setting technology installed. We are one of the first trail systems in the US to try this new technology, but reports from Europe indicate that it’s a huge upgrade. We are excited to get more snow so we can try it.
New ski trails have been added this year. The best news is that Quinn convinced the forest service to give us permission to use a different connector route to reach Aspen Lake. If you loved face-planting onto the ice at the bottom of the steep Aspen Lake hill then you may find the new, relatively flat connection to Aspen to be less of a thrill, but it will certainly be safer. Since the beginning of time, this spot has been a tribulation for skiers as well as for the groomers. We were surprised and pleased when the USFS agreed to Quinn’s creative solution, utilizing a little-used portage (not in the BWCA) to Aspen Lake. It is located across from the East Bearskin Lake Campground entry. Skiers will need to make a short jog to the east to reach the new connection, but it should be worth it.
Preparing the new North-South Link. You can see that it’s much less steep than the old trail.
Our trail crew has also been busy clearing an additional new trail this year. Because Ted and Barbara Young of Poplar Creek B & B are working towards a well-earned retirement, the grooming of the Banadad Trail and its adjacent trails will be under different management. Our Central Gunflint Trail System has taken over the Lace Lake Trail. For this year Cricket, Ethan, Kate, Quinn and Mando (yes, the pup) cleared and widened an additional 3K of the trail so the Pisten Bully groomer can fit through. This will add a fun new option for guests skiing the Poplar Creek Trail.
Quinn and Mando clearing the new Lace Lake addition to the trail system.
If you’d like a more adventurous visit, two of our new Ski-In Winter Camping Cabins will be open this winter. Everything you need to know about these cabins can be found here. You can either ski or snowshoe to the cabins. The cabins are located on Oxcart Ski Trail, so you have easy access to the entire trail system. They are also located in the midst of our extensive snowshoe trail system.
Ski-in cabin
Speaking of the snowshoe trail, last weekend our guests Tracy and Eric Bibilnieks went on the hunt for the elusive and often disappearing Cranberry Snowshoe Trail. They found it and marked it, yay! Assuming we don’t lose it again, Cranberry Snowshoe Trail adds a significant distance to the system.
So the last big question of the season is, of course, snow. Bearskin always has snow, and we aren’t very concerned about this year. We did have one year when the snowstorm hit on December 26, cutting it a little too close. Our snow tends to come in small 1- 4 inch light snowfalls, gradually building up, then eventually culminating in a massive, debilitating snowstorm. Bearskin’s pisten bully has rubber tracks, which allows us to groom Summer Home Road and Campground in very low snow conditions. Our Tidd-Tech snowmobile groomer will be able to groom the lake soon.
Considering that we had excessive, unmanageable snow for the past two seasons, we won’t mind if we get a little less this year. As for those weather forecasts that look like “no snow,” don’t let those worry you yet. Bearskin is in a unique location that gets snow when nobody else does. Most weather forecasts that you find online really aren’t forecasting for our elevation and are giving you a forecast for the Grand Marais Airport, about 25 miles away. It’s snowing right now, with no sign of snow in the forecast. We will post regular updates on our snow conditions as it happens.
As is often the case, as the season winds down our ski reports did too. Don’t worry, it’s not for lack of snow. We have an astounding amount of snow. A little melting here and there made absolutely no impact on our giant snow piles. We think we’ve had around 120 inches of snow so far. We just received about 7- 9 more inches all day Wednesday. Quinn and Bob will groom Thursday morning, so the system should be beautiful for the coming weekend.
We will continue grooming until the end of March. The resort closes in April so that we can do repairs and deep cleaning. Officially we are done grooming then. But if you are a season pass holder, you are welcome to keep using the trails for as long as you find good skiing.
We don’t envy all of you who are still digging out from the big Minnesota/Wisconsin snowstorm yesterday. We only got a few inches of snow up here, just enough to make the trails even better. We do feel your pain as we had our 24-inch dump of snow earlier this season.
The challenge for us now is figuring out where to put all our snow. As you drive into Bearskin, you’ll see that our roads are increasingly narrowing and the roadside snowbanks are immense. According to Golden Eagle’s official measuring stick, we’ve had 84″ of snow so far this season — and we’re not done yet.
The ski trails are in excellent condition, just beautiful. Our upcoming forecast looks ideal. Lots of sun, just a little more snow to freshen up the trails, and moderate temperatures without being too warm. Perfect for a ski getaway.
Don’t forget to sign up for the Bearskin Nordic Ski Series. Quinn usually changes the race courses close to the beginning of each month, so there are only a few more days to ski the Oxcart and West Logging Camp race courses.
If you will be here during the weekend of March 4, Bearskin will be sponsoring a free ski clinic for Bearskin guests or anyone in the area. There will be two sessions of expert Nordic ski instruction from members of Team Birkie. The clinic is open to everyone, is free and will accommodate all experience levels. The schedule is as follows:
10:30-12:00 Classic Clinic (meet in the lodge) 12:00-12:45 Lunch Break (soup, chili, hot chocolate, wine and beer will be available in the lodge) 12:45-2:15 Skate Clinic (meet in the lodge)
Participants must have a Central Gunflint Ski Trail pass. Guests, of course, receive the passes free but otherwise you can purchase a ski pass at our front desk.
It rained last week. Rain in February, that’s not something that happens often on the Gunflint Trail. Temperatures rose to 40+ degrees. Typical mid-February temperatures can often be -10 or -20 degrees. We were worried. The trails looked terrible.
Luckily, we also ended the run of weird weather with a nice amount of fresh snow. That didn’t work out as well for some trail systems closer to the North Shore, so we are thankful for our higher altitude location. The groomers were out on the trails Friday and Saturday, and once again we have great skiing throughout the system.
We are back to two Pisten Bully grooming machines now, since Golden Eagle received their replacement “loaner” machine. They also purchased a new Tidd-Tech snowmobile groomer like ours so that they can groom the lake trails without using the Pisten Bully. (Their earlier underwater adventure is not one anybody would choose to repeat!) What this means for your ski experience is that we can continue to get out to groom both sides of the system quickly and responsively.
If you’re here for the weekend, don’t forget that we have soup, chili, cookies, hot chocolate, wine and beer in the Main Lodge every afternoon. Parking in our lot can get a little crazy on holiday weekend afternoons. If you drive into our lot and parking looks hopeless, consider going back out to the Gunflint Trail and driving north to the next road, Clearwater Road — then you can start at Golden Eagle. Their parking lot never gets quite as insane as ours does. You are still skiing on the same trail system, but starting at a different point. Ski over and join us for lunch.
The Bearskin Virtual Nordic Ski series is at the halfway point for the season. It’s not too late to sign up. https://bearskinnordicseries.com/ The February race courses are probably very familiar to our regular skiers, as they are favorite trails. If you have any questions about what you need to participate in the race series, email quinn@bearskin.com. He will help you get set up.
It finally got chilly. Too chilly — a number of nights of -20 to -30. Skiers were still out there during the day because, of course, we also finally had clear, blue skies and sunny days. January featured mostly lovely temperatures up until the past week, nothing like the January weather we used to always get. After we survive a few more cold nights, we are returning to “balmy” winter temperatures for February.
Zach at Golden Eagle was out with his official measuring stick a few days ago and came up with these numbers:
New Snow Last 7 days: 4.25” Trail Base, Staked: Average 15” Snow in Woods, Staked: Average 23-26” Groomed with classic track: 70 km Groomed with skate lane: 63 km Surface Conditions: Fresh snow Last grooming day: 1-28-23 Total season snowfall: 71.25”
As usual, we are serving chili, soup, hot chocolate, beer, and wine in the Main Lodge every afternoon, and there are fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies for sale in the lodge. We’ll see you on the trails!
Bearskin Lodge Ski Trail Reports 