Monthly Archives: March 2012

3.17.2012 Thanks for a great winter!

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 We made our last attempt at grooming some trails on Wednesday. Grooming was semi-successful but the snow has continued to rapidly melt. Now we have a significant number of bare sections on many trails. It’s time to declare this winter ski season on the Central Gunflint Trail System officially over.

 At this point a few people try to ski every morning, but there are many bare spots to work around. Snowshoeing is also an option. You don’t need to pay to use the trails anymore, but we do ask that you come into the lodge and sign a trail waiver.
 
In a year when many resorts had to spend the entire winter apologizing for a lack of snow, we were very, very grateful to have good trail conditions for the entire season. It makes our daily job much more fun to be able to say, “Yes! We have great snow!”
 
At this point, we’re psychologically moving on to what could potentially be a beautiful spring.If this weather keeps up, the hiking on our trails during the month of April could be fantastic!

3.13.2012 Snowshoe a few of our trails

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Realistic assessment of snow conditions:  our trails held up OK during the warm, sunny days, but yesterday’s rain and strong winds were very hard on the snow.

We’re opening a few of the trails on this side of the system for snowshoeing.  You’ll still need a trail pass.  Bear Cub, Poplar Creek, and Oxcart can be experienced right now on snow shoes, a fun and different way to get back into a Superior National Forest area that you can normally only traverse on skis in the winter.

This is the Gunflint Trail in far northern Minnesota, so we’ll be fairly surprised if we don’t get another big dump of fresh snow to groom. We’ll turn these trails back into great ski trails again if we get the snow. But the current forecast looks like several more days of discouraging melting. 

Very, very strange weather. We’re lucky–when the rest of MN has been dealing with erratic weather this winter, we’ve consistently had nice snow on the Gunflint. We’re in the sweet spot for snow.  Figuring out what to do in these conditions is not fun, so we’re grateful that we didn’t have an entire winter of solving a snow problem.

3.11.2012 Spring skiing is here, at least for the moment

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Total snowfall since November 1:  64.20 inches

Spring skiing is here with solid trails in the morning and softening during the day.  For the most current conditions, call us.

The temps are great, but the conditions vary by the hour. The ski trails firm up overnight with below freezing temperatures, and then get soft in during the day.  Here are some tips:

Classic:  Best skiing is in the morning while the tracks are still firm from setting up over night.  The tracks may have a glaze of ice if the temperature is still below freezing, but that will go away soon when the snow warms up.  At some point the firmness and structure go out of the snow and the tracks get soft.  The best wax for these conditions is: waxless skis.  Conditions change so fast

Freestyle:  Ought to be really good early.  Use a soft glide wax and get out there while the skate deck is still frozen and firm. At some magical moment the whole thing will collapse and you’ll have to slog back to the lodge.

Snowshoeing:  Still great!

We’re hoping these unusually warm temps don’t last. We expect to get more snow.  It’s not uncommon for us to still have snow in early May.  This weather is probably just a teaser.

3.9.2012 More fresh snow, new grooming

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It snowed again last night, giving us a brilliantly white new coating of snow over the older base. A few warmer days last week had resulted in a  stiff top layer of snow.  Last night’s new snow gave the groomers fresh powder to work with today.

The challenge will be to get through the warm temps forecast for the next few days with our snow base intact.  We have a lot of snow; it won’t disappear just because a few days could be above freezing.  But we’ll all be very happy if the high temperatures turn out to be a bit cooler than predicted. Like everyone, we look forward to spring — just not quite yet.