What a winter! Thank you to everyone who made this one of Bearskin’s busiest winters ever. We didn’t admit it, but we were worried when the winter of 2023-24 had little snow and ended abruptly early. We made the best of that time, but we didn’t want it to be our future. Luckily, this winter has been awesome and we are going out on a high note. This last weekend in March was wildly busy, with everyone trying to get one last ski day in before the season ends.
After our last guests check out Monday, Bearskin will close for April. We have SO MUCH cleaning and repairing to do before summer season starts. Thank you all for being here to make memories. It was a fun ski season, and we will do it all again next year! (We are almost full for next winter, 2025-2026, but March — which has proven itself again — has quite a bit of availability. Plus there are still a few scattered January and February, 2025, openings to grab.)
The 15 inches of new snow that we are getting on April 2 will probably wipe out what remains of the grooming for this season. Season pass holders are welcome to continue to ski, whatever the trail conditions, but expect back-country conditions and a closed Main Lodge. Will we groom again this April? Officially, the grooming season has now concluded. (Have we groomed again after we’ve closed in the past? Yes, it’s happened. If you see a groomed trail and you are a season pass-holder with a signed waiver on file, feel free to ski on it.)
Quick grooming update, no pictures. Skiing is still good. Bob groomed the main trails on our south side of the system this morning and thought the results were great. We are about to get hit with snow/sleet/ mystery weather this afternoon, although much of the predicted snow moved north of us. Pretty decent skiing for the last open weekend of the year!
Quick grooming update, pictures to come later: we did get between 6 – 8 inches of new snow (depending on where on the trail system.) The trees are snow-coated and everything is quite beautiful. Bob has been out grooming all morning. He stopped back into the lodge to report that conditions are fabulous, and is now out doing Ox Cart and Bear Cub. He will do the lake trail afterwards, and probably won’t get into the BWCA trail section until tomorrow morning. We’ll see — it’s a one man grooming show this week, with Quinn on spring break and other staff out sick. Poplar Creek won’t be groomed, as it has severe spring flooding.
This was a good amount of snow to cover the areas where a few rocks and sticks were beginning to peek through. The trails look good. Bring a camera, as it’s all super photogenic now.
We have more snow in the forecast for the weekend. The lodge closes as of April 1 but season pass holders will be able to continue to ski for as long as the snow holds.
Bearskin sponsored a high school Nordic ski coaches clinic this past weekend. Honestly, as we got to the weekend the weather forecast could not have been worse. Endless rain, warm temperatures, and wind —guaranteed to wipe out the trails early.
Luckily, the days were much better than predicted. We did have rain, thunder, hail, wind, and even a little snow, but the clinic worked out just fine anyway and the trails held up pretty well, considering. Temperatures dropped into a more normal winter range overnight, allowing Quinn and Bob to go out in the Pisten Bully this morning and groom the iciness out of our trails. They were very pleased with the results. Our track pan tillers work miracles. Lots of people out skiing and enjoying our trails this morning.
We groomed Summer Home, Campground, Lower Beaver Dam, Bear Cub and Ox Cart. There are a few spots with rocks poking through, but mostly it looks like good skiing.
We have snow in the forecast for Monday, which will clean up the whole winter look. Temperatures for the week ahead are typical mid-March, spring skiing temperatures. Get out early in the day for the best skiing. We will continue to maintain our trails regularly to keep up with the daily changes.
The northern lights forecast for the next few days has calmed down a bit but don’t take the lack of lights in the forecast too seriously. March 20 is spring equinox, a time known for surprise aurora shows. If we have clear nights, it’s worth a try to go out on the lake trail and scan the skies for a show.
Soup and chili still available in the lodge every day. Stop in for a quick lunch, or a taste of cheesecake after you hit the trail.
Get out to ski early on Sunday and Monday. We are going to warm up into the 40°+ range in the afternoon for two days, so it could get wet later in the day. We have snow in the forecast Monday, which will help improve conditions again. Classic spring skiing conditions. Our new track pan tillers should clean up the post-warm weather iciness nicely — they work wonders.
Northern lights last night — photo taken from the ski trail crossing the lake by Annette Cozzi.
We still have fantastic skiing at Bearskin! Everything was groomed over the last two days, and some skate lanes were touched up this morning. We’ve had fresh snow while other areas had rain, so our trails are looking good.
We had a couple warm days this week, and it looks like we will have a couple warm days next week too — but we have ample snow, so the trails will be fine. Our new track pan tillers work miracles on icy snow.
As is often the case by March, we’ve reached the point where you’ll start to wonder on the drive up to the Gunflint if we really do have snow. The snow along the North Shore and in Grand Marais has been decimated by warmer temps and rain, while we just had more snow. Don’t worry, when you drive up the hill you’ll start to see better snow and by the time you get to the mid-Trail area, you’re in true winter again. We are lucky to be in this magical winter location.
If you’ll be here in the next week, come prepared to watch for Northern Lights. The forecast is fabulous. We are nearing the spring equinox, so due to the earth’s tilt at this time we often have the best light shows of the year in mid-March. In fact, it’s fairly common to have amazing green lights in the sky on St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s our link to the info on how to watch for the aurora at Bearskin. Bring your camera and tripod.
As usual, we will have soup, chili, cheesecake, and hot chocolate in the Main Lodge for you to enjoy while you’re up here skiing. See you soon!
Yesterday was warm, way too warm, so the groomers were out early today to attempt to soften up the icy snow. This was the perfect opportunity to try our Pisten Bully’s new track pan tillers, designed for exactly this use. Quinn and Bob were very happy with the results. This is very new Pisten Bully technology and even though we’ve had the specialty tillers for over year, conditions have not been right until now to try them. Success! Spring skiing should be even better this March with this new piece of equipment.
We groomed everything on the Bearskin side this morning, and conditions are excellent. It looks like we have a lot more grooming in our future, with heavy snow expected.Thursday night and Friday morning we are forecast to get anywhere from 4″ – 10″ of fresh snow, with increasing totals in almost every forecast.
After yesterday’s warm temperatures, we were delighted to get some fresh during the night. We groomed most of the trails this morning, stopping to make sure the trails have enough time to set up before it gets above freezing. It should be great skiing out there today!
Today is forecast to reach 34° and tomorrow gets up to 38°, then we get back into lower temperatures again. We have snow in the forecast Thursday and Friday, so these slightly warmer temperatures shouldn’t have much impact. It’s all good.
After several weeks of the consistent “snow, groom, snow, groom again” pattern that we know so well at Bearskin we have a bit of a weather change for early this week. We are warming into the 30°+ temp range for a few days. We won’t be seeing any super-warm temps like the Twin Cities is forecast to have and we have plentiful snow, so we are not too worried about snow loss. It gets cold again by the weekend.
Bearskin has the right equipment to overcome any trail iciness, including some specialized track-pan tillers for our Pisten Bully that only a few machines in the US have. It actually will be fun for the groomers to use these tillers. We purchased them last year with our newest Pisten Bully, but then never experienced the right conditions to try the tillers out. We will report back on how well they work to keep the trails perfect.
Bearskin has been almost 100% full since late December, but now that we are getting into March there are cabin openings again. We always fill up for the year ahead because everyone who is here has a great time so they rebook for next year. In the low-snow winter of 2024 we kept our skiing going until March 6 with incredible efforts by Quinn, Bob and our staff — we were proud to have the last skiing anywhere in Minnesota. They raided the lake to move snow to the ski trails, and also created long ski trails around the snowy lake to keep skiing alive. But after the first week of March even those efforts couldn’t save the trails and skiing was over. Consequently, there weren’t as many guests here to rebook for 2025 and now there are lots of great options available. (It’s funny to look at the reservation calendar because you can clearly see where the season ended.) A sequence of events that’s not likely to happen again!
“Value season” at Bearskin, the lowest rates of the season, starts on March 9th. Normally that first week after the rates go down is booked solid by the folks who were here last year on those dates. We expect skiing will still be good , and the longer days and slightly warmer temperatures usually make this some of the most fun skiing of the year. Give us a call at (218) 388-2292 or email stay@bearskin.com and we will help you make a plan.
What else is happening? We have a good northern lights forecast coming up next weekend, if we have clear skies.
And of course, on March 20 we have the vernal/spring Equinox, when day and night hours are exactly equal. The reason we especially like the equinox up here in the northern latitudes is that we often experience the best northern lights shows of the year around the equinox. The explanation is complicated, but the short version is that the earth’s tilt aligns directly with solar wind, allowing more of the charged particles that create the aurora into the atmosphere. The brightest most amazing aurora shows we’ve ever seen have been on dates shortly before and after the spring equinox. We can’t ever promise great northern lights, but your chances of a sighting are very good as you get into mid-March.
Bearskin Lodge Ski Trail Reports 