Out grooming in a snow storm. It won’t look like this for long, but should make for a great morning of skiing!
1.12.2025 Grooming done for today, we will do it all tomorrow again
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Author Archives: Bearskin
1.12.2025 Snowing!
Quick weather update: it snowed overnight, it’s snowing now. Groomers on both sides have been out this morning doing many of the trails because we have lots of skiers here, but we are midway through the snowstorm. We’ll do it all again in the morning. Weather service says the heaviest snow is just sitting over Lake Superior and has not made it inland. That’s probably ok with us. The snow we are receiving is very nice.
1.10.2025. New snow, Pisten Bully is out grooming
It snowed a bit last night, with more in the forecast for the weekend. We have been so grateful to have good skiing here, but our snow was getting fairly compacted. It snowed just enough to freshen up the trails well.
We groomed the east side trails this morning with our Pisten Bully. We’ll do the west side — Bear Cub, Oxcart, and Poplar Creek — this afternoon. (EDIT: Quinn didn’t get to Bear Cub this afternoon.) The small amount of snow we received did wonders and everything groomed up great.
The northern trails, on the Golden Eagle side, had their skate decks refreshed with the Tidd-Tech this morning. Golden Eagle plans to go out with their Pisten Bully on their side of the trail system after the snow this weekend.
Weekend Planning:
We will have soup, chili, cheesecake, cookies, hot chocolate, caramel macchiato, wine, beer, pop, and snacks available in the Main Lodge for weekend skiers. Skiers are coming here to practice for races from all over the state right now, so the parking lot has been getting a bit full on the weekends. Remember, if our parking is nutty then you can drive a little farther up the Gunflint Trail to Golden Eagle and start on the north side of the same system. That lot is generally more available. If you get here fairly early, then parking is easy. Arrive in the morning and spend the day. By lunch time the lot may get fairly full— be smart about how you park.
We do have an opening in Lodge 4 for this weekend, as well a big new opening in Cabin 3 for dates during the coming week. (Cabin 3 rarely comes open in winter!) Check our Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BearskinLodge/ for more info.
1.9.2025 Re-groomed Poplar Creek
We re-groomed the skate lane on Poplar Creek this morning. It groomed up nicely, and should be good skiing through the weekend.
We have snow in the forecast now every day through Sunday afternoon. Fresh snow at this point would be appreciated!
1.8.2025 Lots of happy skiers
You’ve probably heard there’s “no snow” up north. Not true at Bearskin. We continue to provide good skiing conditions on the Central Gunflint Trail System. Skiers are happy to be here. On Sunday, a bitterly cold day, we still set a new record for how many January day-ski passes we sold. Of course, our trails are so extensive that you don’t usually encounter all those other people, but the trails were busy with serious skiers.
We’ve been in a stretch now with no new snow or else small flurries of snow. The trails are still holding up just fine. We went out and touched up some skate lanes on Summer Home, Campground, Beaver Dam, and the Lit Loop. They’ve been well-used, but they cleaned up nicely.
It looks like we could get some mild temperatures and more snow by the end of the week! We don’t need much more snow to continue to maintain the trails well, but a few inches of fresh flakes would make our groomers super happy.
12.29.2024 Beautiful sunny ski day
We were out on the trails this morning before the temps got above freezing and groomed Ox Cart, Summerhome, Campground and the lit loop. All are great skiing. We’ll groom more tomorrow when temps get below freezing for good.
12.28.2024. Warm temps but we’re getting a nice snowfall
Ski conditions: we did not get the rain that the North Shore received on Friday, thankfully. But it did warm up in the afternoon on Friday so some trails looked a bit mushy by about 2 pm. Not ideal. We are happy to report that this morning we are receiving light snow, so far not rain, so this dusting will help. We can’t groom at this temperature, or the wet snow will compress to ice. But ski conditions this morning should be improved by the fresh snow. EDIT TO ADD: it’s 33° at 1 PM but it is snowing hard — yay! Based on this radar, we should continue to build up snow (blue on the radar) for the rest of the afternoon. You can see that once again the shore is getting hit with rain (green). Don’t let reports of rain in Grand Marais worry you, we should be fine up here. We have tons of skiers today and while these are not our dream conditions, the Central Gunflint Trail system might be saved from the devastating snow conditions occurring along the shore. 🤞🏻.
12.23.2024 BWCAW section groomed first time
We groomed the BWCAW section of Logging Camp today. Because of the difficulties associated with trimming a trail in the BWCAW, it has a few more sticks poking through and is a bit lumpier than the rest of the system.
12.21.2024 First grooming across lake
We have a couple more firsts for this winter today: first time grooming across the lake and first guests in the ski-in cabins!
The trail across the lake to Bear Cub, Ox Cart, and Poplar Creek was groomed this morning and it looks great. Too soon to groom the lake trail going to the east — ice is forming slowly this winter and we are uncertain if it’s safe yet off our little bay. You can already easily access all the east-side trails directly from our parking lot to Summer Home Road, so the eastern lake crossing can wait.
12.20.2024. Poplar Creek and Lace Lake Trails opened
The trails are looking great for the weekend! We groomed Poplar Creek for the first time this year, and Lace Lake for the first time ever (for us). Lace Lake is still a bit bumpy due to swamps and various boulders, but it should be fun skiing.
Pictured are Lace Lake and Upper Beaver Dam.
Bearskin Lodge Ski Trail Reports 