After a few much-deserved quiet, calm days it snowed like crazy on the Gunflint Trail again on Wednesday. Apparently it turned to icy rain along the North Shore, temporarily creating a sheet of ice on Highway 61 and causing a number of small accidents.  Up here on the hill all it did was snow and blow all day and most of the night.

We entertained ourselves at lunch on Wednesday by watching chickadees blow off the bird feeder. The snow on our back deck is normally covered by an elaborate trail system pounded down by our overtly-friendly pine marten and our 2 excessively chubby red squirrels, Fatso and Mean Fatso. (No, they shouldn’t all co-exist in our deck ecosystem, but that’s another story.) Snow was blowing horizontally across the deck all morning, and still those furry critters braved the storm to collect their share of the birdseed; but by afternoon they’d given up and for the first time in weeks all footprints were erased by the blowing snow.

The groomers were working on the ski trails very early Thursday morning, and by the time the sun broke through the clouds later in the day we had the entire system done and ready to go. Mid-week afternoons tend to be very quiet here, but the skiers who were out returned from their skiing almost giddy with joy over how beautiful the trail conditions are.

Here are the latest numbers from the official Central Gunflint Trail snow measurers at Golden Eagle:

Central Gunflint Ski Trail Conditions on 1-28-16

• New Snow Last 24 hours:  4.0”
• New Snow Last 7 days:  5.85 inches
• Trail Base, Staked:  Average 9 – 10 inches
• Snow in Woods, Staked:  Average 16 – 22 inches
• Groomed with classic track:  68 K
• Groomed with skate lane:  56 K
• Surface Conditions:  Fresh packed snow
• Last grooming day:  1-28-16
• Total snowfall since Nov. 1:  52.30”