As March wraps up, we are dealing with typical late season conditions on our trail system.  We just returned from a Twin Cities/Duluth trip, and it’s obvious that we haven’t had a fraction of the melting and rain that those two cities have experienced recently.   We still have ample snow here and, in fact, it is snowing lightly right now.

But daily temperatures in the afternoons have been getting warm enough to create slush and icy conditions.  We also had some rain.  When the temps cool back down each evening, the wet snow freezes into a very hard surface.

Trails were groomed on 3/14.  The classic tracks at this point are hard and icy, with a small amount of powder coating.  Skaters, on the other had, are having a great time skiing on this surface.  Morning skiing, as is typical of late March, has been quite good but afternoon skiing can be wet, depending on the temps and amount of afternoon sun.

We haven’t decided what our next grooming step will be. We may wait to see what happens with the weather. If it continues to melt and slush up every afternoon, we probably won’t try too hard to fight it at this point.  However, a good dump of snow could make grooming the trails again more realistic.