We continue to get our daily dose of snow, a little bit at a time.    It keeps our snow looking fresh and new, but is a grooming challenge.  Yesterday Quinn was grooming in a snow downpour for awhile, which feels a bit futile!  The snow is clinging to the trees beautifully — it couldn’t be more photogenic out there.

The entire system was groomed 1/8.  Since then groomers on both sides have been out periodically to touch up some trails.  There was fresh powder in many tracks, but numerous skiers reported that the snow was enough to give them more control on hills but not so much as to be a problem.  

Quinn noted on one of his grooming runs yesterday through the Campground Trail that winter campers had dragged sleds over the freshly groomed trails.  Campers don’t all seem to realize that pulling sleds over a groomed ski trails means that the whole thing needs to be redone, wasting fuel and time.  We are happy to let campers go out on our packed down dog sledding trail, which is much easier and doesn’t destroy any grooming efforts.

 This morning, after an inch of snow fell yesterday afternoon,  both sides of the system are being regroomed.  Dan reports that he is  “out with the  snowcat today and plans to groom everything on the north side of Flour Lake as well as the North South Link, Wolf Point, the West End Logging Camp, Ridge Run, Moose Pasture and the upper part of the Beaver Dam.  There is a nice solid base for freestyle and good tracks for classic skiing.”

Quinn is out in the Pisten Bully and is working on completing the East Bearskin side of the system.  He is into grooming perfectionism, so it take him awhile to finish.   At this point mid-day Bear Cub, Oxcart, Poplar Creek, Summer Home and Campground are done.  We’ll update this later when he’s done for the day.

We have been lucky so far this winter that trails on lakes weren’t forming slush, but yesterday Quinn started to note some of the first serious slush pockets on our lake trail.   It might be wise to avoid that trail until the slush freezes up again.

More snow is in the forecast for the next few days.

Dan’s measurements:

New Snow Last 24 hours:  1.0 inch
New Snow Last 7 days:  2.25 inches
Trail Base: Snowcat packed: 8 - 9-1/2 inches
Snow in Woods: 16 -18 inches 
Surface Conditions: Powder, packed powder
Snowshoe trail:  Open

Total snowfall since November 1:  44.25 inches  Conditions:  Good to Excellent