After a couple weeks with no fresh snow (very odd for us), we added about 8 inches of new snow over the past 24 hours. We have a great group of serious skiers here, so we did groom many of the trails throughout the day in the snowstorm. Skiers were very happy with conditions. We’ll be out grooming again tomorrow to get ready for the weekend.

Soup and chili will be available in the lodge all weekend — come on up to ski.

Will you be attending the World Cup Cross-Country Ski races in Minneapolis this week?  Stop in at the Bearskin Mini-Lodge along the race course. Quinn will be there Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday and will be happy to chat.  Hope to see you there.

Here’s a video of the Mini-Lodge going up in our garage. Now they’ll take the whole thing apart, put it on a trailer, and bring it to Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis, then set it up again.

We had a few bitterly cold days this week, but the temperatures have warmed up nicely for the long weekend. Conditions should be excellent all weekend.

We will be serving soup and chili in the Lodge and, as usual, hot chocolate, wine, and beer are also available for your enjoyment.

Our expectations are that the Bearskin parking lot will fill up early, as it almost always does on a 3-day weekend. We will have overflow parking available, but if you get here and find that the parking situation has gone crazy, we encourage you to drive just a little farther up the Gunflint Trail and start on the Golden Eagle side of the Central Gunflint system.  Same snow, same trails, same tickets, same system, just an emptier parking lot.  Many, many people ski from Golden Eagle to Bearskin, and eat lunch or have a glass of wine in the Bearskin Lodge before skiing back.  It’s a great option if you discover that our parking lot is overwhelmed.

In other news, Kate and Quinn made a video of skiing all of the Bear Cub Trail this week. Since this is a trail that is too challenging for many skiers, we thought you might enjoy “skiing” along with them.

It snows almost every day. We are grooming multiple times each week. There’s been no melting, there’s been no rain. Conditions are outstanding.

Our temperatures have been relatively mild this winter, so the constant snow plus decent temps have made this a favorite winter for many skiers. There are a few cold days ahead, but then temps bounce back nicely. It’s a fantastic winter for skiing, but not much of a winter for writing exciting ski trail reports.

Quinn and Kate have continued to make videos of various ski trails in the system. Last week they focused on Bear Cub. Since not everyone dares to do this trail, you can watch the videos to ski Bear Cub vicariously. The uphill video looks grueling and the downhill video is super fast.

Quinn and Kate have been out with the video camera lately, taking videos of trails, grooming, and ski techniques.

We have so much snow. The regular cycle of snow, groom, snow, groom, snow, groom, etc. continues. The groomers go out after every significant snowfall, and the trails are in excellent shape. So far this has been a snowy winter with relatively mild temperatures, but we haven’t experienced any temps or weather conditions that degraded the snow — no iciness, no sleet, no “mixed precipitation,” just lots more snow.

At this point we’ve received about 73 inches of snow this season.  (There have been years when that was the snow total for the entire season — 2020 will obviously be a high snow winter.) Our trail base is averaging 14 inches. Skiers are very happy with conditions.

In other news, Quinn and Kate have been using our Go-Pro to create videos about trails, grooming, and even ski techniques. Videos are usually posted to the Bearskin Facebook page and to the Bearskin Wilderness Outfitters Facebook page, but here are links to all the videos so far. Next on the agenda (as soon as they get some better after-work daylight!) will be a video of ski tips for classic skiers.

Skate ski tips

Ski along with us on Upper Beaver Dam Trail

How we groom the short BWCAW section of our trail system

A fast tour of the Poplar Creek Trail

The much-improved Bearskin wax room 

Keep watching.  We will start to post their new videos directly to this blog in the future.

Meanwhile, we probably won’t be blogging trail reports constantly because, face it, these are reruns — we are in a pleasant, repetitive winter pattern. Should conditions change dramatically, we will definitely post here. For the most recent grooming information, please contact Bearskin Lodge (1-800-338-4170) or Golden Eagle Lodge (1-800-346-2203).

Driving into Bearskin Lodge this week. Photo by our massage therapist, Christal Stone Kelahan.

Time flies over the holidays!  An update to our trail conditions blog is much needed. For as long as we’ve delayed, we still don’t have much to say. It snowed. We groomed. It snowed again. We groomed.  Repeat cycle almost every day.  To get an idea of snow conditions, check out this Video of the Poplar Creek Ski Trail.

Much of the North Shore experienced ice and rain over the past two weeks. That didn’t happen here, it just snowed. Constantly. On New Year’s Day, Quinn and I walked out of the lodge in the afternoon as it started to snow…again.  “Oh no, ” we both said simultaneously.  “Oh no” should not be the normal response to snow when you run a cross-country ski resort, but after grooming, plowing, and shoveling as often as we have over the past weeks, “Oh no” is probably the normal reaction.

According to the official measuring stick at Golden Eagle Lodge, we’ve already had 53.875 inches of snow this season.  This last storm added almost 14 inches to an already impressive early season total.  The groomers have been out almost every day, and they will continue to go out whenever it snows significantly.

The negative side of all this snow is that the weight of snow has created a great deal of slush on all the lakes. Slush does not mean the ice is unsafe. Heavy snow pushes lake water up through cracks or edges, creating a layer of watery slush under the snow that sticks to your skis, snowshoes, or boots with every step you take.  Lake crossings are not consistently good right now, so we advise using trails that circumvent the lakes until this stage of winter is over.

The weekend forecast is good, we’ll have soup and chili on in the lodge, and the skiing should be fantastic.  Come up to visit us soon.

Snow Totals from Golden Eagle

October/November Total 2019 – 24.0 inches

December 2019
Dec 1 – Dec 7:  1.0 inches
Dec 8 – Dec 14:  13.0 inches
Dec 15 – Dec 21:  1.125 inches
Dec 22 – Dec 28:  0.0 inches
Dec 29 – Dec 31:  13.75 inches
December Total 2019 – 28.875 inches

January 2020
Jan 2:  1.0 inches
January Total 2020 – 1.0 inches

Total Snowfall 2019-2020 – 53.875 inches

We’ve added a great deal of snow since our last post. We’re back to our cycle of snow every few days, and many of those days have seen significant snowfall.

Both sides of the system have been groomed multiple times now.  Skate decks are firm, classic tracks are setting up nicely. Everything was groomed again today, after an 8 inch snowfall overnight. It was still seriously snowing while the groomers were out, so they expect they’ll redo many sections of trail again over the next few days.

At this point there are only a few sections of the trail system that aren’t entirely open.  All trails are groomed except except Poplar Creek (always the last to open because of water issues, but should be ready to go this week); some lake crossings; and the BWCA connector on the west side, which can’t be groomed with the Pisten Bully.  These are the usual last pieces of the trail puzzle and should gradually fall into place over the next few days.

Most of the Central Gunflint Trail System ski trails are groomed for both skate and classic skiing. Conditions are great! Skiers seem very happy.  Trail tickets are available at both Bearskin Lodge and Golden Eagle.

Oxcart was groomed for the second time with the Pisten Bully on Monday afternoon.  Bear Cub was packed and rolled last week and was also groomed Monday afternoon, so if you love hills, that trail is now available.

Summer Home, Campground, the Lit Loop, and Lower Beaver Dam continue to be in good early season condition.

We are happy to say Bearskin didn’t get pummeled with more snow when Duluth received 20 inches this past weekend. The storm did not make it this far north. We added a little more snow to our already substantial base, which is just the way we like it. It’s easier to create a firm base when we are repeatedly grooming smaller snowfalls constantly instead of dealing with a huge amount all at once.

At this point we have excellent early skiing conditions. Many trails are open, with more to come. We have quite a few inches of firm base already, and the trails that are open are groomed for both classic and skate skiing.  We were very busy with skiers all weekend, and they were quite pleased with conditions.

It’s quiet at the resort for the next 2 weeks, so we decided to offer an early season ski special. Rent 3 nights and we’ll give you one of those nights for free. Right now we’re in the cheap season, “Value Season” rates, so getting one night free makes it a super bargain. We’re deep cleaning cabins at the moment and completing some major projects, so not all the cabins are open for this rate.  Early December is always a hard sell, as everyone is so busy with holiday events, parties, programs, and shopping.  If you can make the time for a quick getaway we’ve got the snow, we’ve got the groomed trails, and we’ve got some cozy empty cabins just waiting for some guests. Bonus: moose are everywhere on the ski trails lately!

Bearskin Lodge, voted #3  in the USA Today “2019 Best Cross-Country Ski Resorts” Readers’ Choice Awards.

Summer Home, Campground, and Oxcart are open for skiing.  Early season conditions, of course, but initial reports were that it’s pretty good.

Yes, it snowed! We received about 12 inches of great snow overnight, on top of a few inches that we gradually accumulated over the past week. So the answer to the question of the day = soon. Not yet, but soon. Almost all our staff is on vacation this week, and Bob is the sole groomer/plower/shoveler/snow-blower on site. Today was a “digging out” day.  The road and driveway are plowed, steps are shoveled, paths have been snow-blown — it’s possible to get to Bearskin now.  Next we will concentrate on grooming.

Normally we pack these trails over and over with the snowmobile roller first, to firm up the base, then we go out with the Pisten Bully afterwards to create our beautiful trails. Bob will start in on the trails Friday and see what happens. We will post on Facebook and on here as soon as we have groomed trails ready for you to try. The season has started!