Happy New Year from Bearskin Lodge!

We’ve probably had a record number of skiers on our trails over the past few days.  Our parking area has looked like a lot at Mall of America by 1:00.  Trails were well-used, but groomers have been out to keep the trails cleaned up.

It snowed for much of yesterday afternoon.  Groomers are out this morning and even though it has started snowing again, the groomers plan to stay out.  Based on the weather radar images, this snow should not be substantial.

We’ve had a little bit of snow everyday this week,enough to keep the available trails fresh but not really enough to open more trails. On Wednesday the big snow finally came.  It snowed all day yesterday, it snowed all night, and it’s still snowing. 3 groomers have been out on the system since early this morning. It will take awhile to get the whole system done, since it’s the first time this season for many of these trails, but it looks like we received enough snow that every trail should be available.

Grooming our side of the system takes 8-12 hours; the Golden Eagle side is comparable. Groomers have been out since before dawn, but this will be the first time many trails get groomed this season.  It won’t be fast grooming.  Expect a lot of new trails to be open today, but don’t anticipate that everything will be done if you arrive in the morning.  It does take time.

But at last, we have a decent ski season!

Merry Christmas!

We’ve had some snow over the past few days, but not the 4-6″ that was forecast.  Nonetheless, in small increments the snow is adding up.  We are thinking about trying to groom Beaver Dam Trail on Monday.

Meanwhile, Summer Home, Campground and the Lit Loop continue to be great skiing.  They are all groomed and tracked; skiers are reporting good to excellent conditions.  All the other trails are packed, so exploratory skiing on those trails has been entertaining for some skiers.

Bob packed and groomed the Man -vs- Dog trail on East Bearskin Lake.  It’s lake skiing, but gives skiers another option while we wait for more snow. The trail is about 5 K  long and is groomed for both classic and skate skiing.

On the Golden Eagle side of the trail system, Deer Mouse, Red Pine, and Wolf Point were just  groomed. Conditions are reported to be good.  There is also a lake loop now on Flour Lake.

The snowshoe trails, of course, are also a fun option at this point.

Not much has changed since the last post. Conditions are about the same. We have occasional flurries, but still but not enough to open the other trails. Summer Home and Campground remain in good condition.  Snow is in the  forecast .

Yesterday afternoon Bob groomed and tracked Summer Home and Campground trails. Everyone who skied yesterday afternoon reported conditions on those trails to be great early season skiing.   However, it is snowing hard again this morning, so there will now be snow in the tracks. 

 Lit Loop has also been groomed, but the snow does not completely cover the stubble yet –we’d call that fair to good in most places.

Lake skiing has been fairly good on East Bearskin.  Lakes along the Gunflint froze up this winter at greatly differing rates; some are just starting to freeze.  We know it’s safe to ski on East Bearskin lake because we’ve been measuring ice thickness here, but we don’t know about ice thickness on any other lakes in the area.

We’re still needing more snow to cover the rocks and stubble on the deep woods trails.  4 more inches would help.  Maybe the snow we’re getting today will be enough.

Packing Oxcart Trail for the first time today.  With a little more snow we could be ready to groom that trail soon.

A mix of rain, then snow with warmer temps on Wednesday probably gave us a net decrease in our snow cover by the end of the day.  It’s snowing nicely this morning again, though, and this seems to be accumulating.  Quinn plans to go out sometime later this afternoon and regroom Summer Home and Campground trails.

Still not enough snow to cover the boulders and rough areas on the deep woods trails, but we’re gradually building a base.

We drove back from a visit to the Twin Cities on Saturday and we were quite surprised by the complete lack of snow all the way up north. For most of the route there are scattered areas with a dusting of snow along the highway, but the first significant amount of snow appeared when we turned up the Gunflint Trail.

We have perhaps 5 inches of snow here.  By most winter standards, we’d call it “not much” snow, but compared to most of the rest of Minnesota, our snow looks pretty good.  The Cook County High School ski team was out on our trails skiing Saturday, so its doable.  Many of our staff members went out skate skiing last night, and had a great time. 

Our lake has 10 inches of ice, so it is skiable.  (East Bearskin had ice earlier than many other area lakes, so we can’t report on the ski conditions for any lake other than East Bearskin.)  There’s not enough ice to use heavy grooming equipment out there yet, but according to the staff members who skied Saturday, the windblown, packed snow surface on East Bearskin worked well for skating.

The Campground/Summer Home Loop has been packed and rolled several times, so good early season skiing can be found there.  Occasional dustings of snow have kept those trails fresh.

We don’t have enough snow to groom anything else yet.  We’re ready to groom when the snow arrives.