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.