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!
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.
It’s snowed a few times this week, maybe an additional 3-4 inches, so the groomers have been out several times this week. Conditions are excellent. We have more snow in the forecast this weekend, which is our typical winter pattern of snow every few days. Skiers are loving it.
If you recognize the location of the ski trail in the picture below from today’s grooming, go to our Facebook page and post your guess. Free cookie to the person who first guesses it correctly. Hint: this isn’t as easy as the last few. 😉
Mystery ski trail
Temperatures are all over the place for the next few days, but nothing too dramatically cold. Decent ski temps.
We do have some northern lights in the forecast for the next few days, which could add some excitement to your trip. Bring a headlamp and ski out on the lake to get the best wide aurora view. We almost always post on the Bearskin Facebook page as soon as we hear about any northern lights activity. For more info about how to see the lights when you’re at Bearskin, go to: https://bearskin.com/bearskin-lodge-photography-series-chasing-the-northern-lights-on-the-gunflint-trail/
We will have soup and chili in the lodge all weekend, as well as hot chocolate, cheesecake, cookies, wine and beer. See you on the trails!
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.
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.
Ski season 2024-2025 is underway. Looking back at the ski posts from last year, it’s pretty funny to see how the posts just trailed off — just like the skiing did. We actually kept the skiing alive until early March, by moving snow from the lake to the trails and by creating a maze of trails on the lake. People had a surprising amount of fun last winter in spite of the low snow conditions. We’ll all remember winter 2023-2024 as uniquely enjoyable because of the different activities everyone could do–hiking into the BWCA, exploring summer trips like Rose Falls, playing with the kick sleds on the lake ice, ice skating far into the wilderness on the lakes. But we didn’t want to do it again this year.
Fortunately, it is looking like winter 2024-2025 might be a snowy one. After an extended autumn, we started getting snow after Thanksgiving and it has been snowing constantly ever since. Bearskin tends to get its snow in big dumps, followed by addtional little snowfalls almost daily. That’s the pattern we are seeing so far this year. We hope it continues.
Summer Home and Campground ski trails have been pisten bully groomed several times now, the latest grooming being Saturday morning. We have the Cook County High School ski team and the Team Birkie skiers out on those trails today and tomorrow, so there has been a lot of ski action on that grooming. Our forecast is for a possible 8″ more of snow Sunday and Monday, with more snow forecast for later in the week. That’s probably just the right amount snow we need to start grooming the rockier, hillier sections of our trail system. We’ve done preparatory packing work on many of the trails on both the north and south sides of the system, so now we just need the snow. We’re ready!
Both Bearskin and Golden Eagle are selling ski passes now, including day passes and season passes. Stop in and get yourself set up for a winter of great skiing!
We lost it all on Friday. The heavy rains came down, the snow that made it possible to groom trails on the lakes turned to standing water, and the snow on our other trails mostly melted. Talk about discouraging, because we’ve worked so hard to make good trails out of mediocre conditions.
BUT, hurray! We are working our way back to skiing! Quinn has groomed trails on Summer Home Road and Campground. Quinn skied on it this evening and wasn’t thrilled about Summer Home. You will have to remove your skis to cross the culvert area in the big dip on Summer Home, and there are some “stop your skis” rocks, he said. Needs continuing snow — we will get there. Campground, on the other hand, is fairly good because of all the snow we hauled to it.
We haven’t been able to redo the lovely, long lake trail we had on East Bearskin because of snow/water slush. We’ll be keeping an eye on that every day until it hardens up again. However, they were able to groom some fairly nice ski trails on the south shore of Aspen Lake.
On the Golden Eagle side, they’ve groomed the Flour Lake Campground trail and added some ski trails back on Flour Lake.
Is it as good as our usual outstanding ski trails? Nope. Is it probably the best skiing on natural snow still available in Minnesota? Yes, it likely is. And we’re happy to say, people seem to be having a pretty good time. We have snow, we have winter conditions, and the temperatures are pleasant enough to get out and enjoy the world.
The weather reports indicate that we are returning to more typical winter conditions, with small snowfalls every day. The forecast looks promising for snow in the future. We’ll never catch up now to the massive amounts of snow we had in 2022 and 2023, but getting adequate snow would be a wonderful surprise. We will continue to do everything we can dream-up to create a good winter experience for our guests.
Aspen ski trail with tracks and corduroy 2.11.2024
We don’t have much snow yet, maybe around 2 inches, but we are all ready for winter. It takes a great deal of year-’round work to maintain the beautiful skiing on the Central Gunflint Ski System, and it’s all done. Now we just need more snow.
Both Bearskin and Golden Eagle will be grooming with new, state-of-the-art Pisten Bully groomers. For those of you who know the Golden Eagle PB story from last year, all is well for 2023-2024. Their replacement PB has been delivered and is ready to go.
Unloading the Bearskin and Golden Eagle Pisten Bully groomers.
Our Pisten Bully spent the summer in Jordan, MN at Kassbohrer getting new track-setting technology installed. We are one of the first trail systems in the US to try this new technology, but reports from Europe indicate that it’s a huge upgrade. We are excited to get more snow so we can try it.
New ski trails have been added this year. The best news is that Quinn convinced the forest service to give us permission to use a different connector route to reach Aspen Lake. If you loved face-planting onto the ice at the bottom of the steep Aspen Lake hill then you may find the new, relatively flat connection to Aspen to be less of a thrill, but it will certainly be safer. Since the beginning of time, this spot has been a tribulation for skiers as well as for the groomers. We were surprised and pleased when the USFS agreed to Quinn’s creative solution, utilizing a little-used portage (not in the BWCA) to Aspen Lake. It is located across from the East Bearskin Lake Campground entry. Skiers will need to make a short jog to the east to reach the new connection, but it should be worth it.
Preparing the new North-South Link. You can see that it’s much less steep than the old trail.
Our trail crew has also been busy clearing an additional new trail this year. Because Ted and Barbara Young of Poplar Creek B & B are working towards a well-earned retirement, the grooming of the Banadad Trail and its adjacent trails will be under different management. Our Central Gunflint Trail System has taken over the Lace Lake Trail. For this year Cricket, Ethan, Kate, Quinn and Mando (yes, the pup) cleared and widened an additional 3K of the trail so the Pisten Bully groomer can fit through. This will add a fun new option for guests skiing the Poplar Creek Trail.
Quinn and Mando clearing the new Lace Lake addition to the trail system.
If you’d like a more adventurous visit, two of our new Ski-In Winter Camping Cabins will be open this winter. Everything you need to know about these cabins can be found here. You can either ski or snowshoe to the cabins. The cabins are located on Oxcart Ski Trail, so you have easy access to the entire trail system. They are also located in the midst of our extensive snowshoe trail system.
Ski-in cabin
Speaking of the snowshoe trail, last weekend our guests Tracy and Eric Bibilnieks went on the hunt for the elusive and often disappearing Cranberry Snowshoe Trail. They found it and marked it, yay! Assuming we don’t lose it again, Cranberry Snowshoe Trail adds a significant distance to the system.
So the last big question of the season is, of course, snow. Bearskin always has snow, and we aren’t very concerned about this year. We did have one year when the snowstorm hit on December 26, cutting it a little too close. Our snow tends to come in small 1- 4 inch light snowfalls, gradually building up, then eventually culminating in a massive, debilitating snowstorm. Bearskin’s pisten bully has rubber tracks, which allows us to groom Summer Home Road and Campground in very low snow conditions. Our Tidd-Tech snowmobile groomer will be able to groom the lake soon.
Considering that we had excessive, unmanageable snow for the past two seasons, we won’t mind if we get a little less this year. As for those weather forecasts that look like “no snow,” don’t let those worry you yet. Bearskin is in a unique location that gets snow when nobody else does. Most weather forecasts that you find online really aren’t forecasting for our elevation and are giving you a forecast for the Grand Marais Airport, about 25 miles away. It’s snowing right now, with no sign of snow in the forecast. We will post regular updates on our snow conditions as it happens.
Trails were regroomed on the 22nd. Skiers report “excellent” conditions nearly everywhere. Due to early season rolling and packing there is a good firm base on the trails. Classic tracks are hard and fast. New corduroy set up beautifully, but skating is slow due to cold temps. As of noon on 12/23 new snow was falling, so there’s probably an inch or two of light power on the trails.
Entire system is groomed and tracked. Quinn and Bob were out Monday with both groomers to regroom after the 4 inches we picked up Saturday night. Because of early rolling and packing and cold snow conditions, the skate lanes are very firm. Average of 15 inches of snow in the woods with depths up to 20 Consistent 6 inches of base throughout the system with considerably more in many places. The North South Link trail across Aspen Lake is closed at the moment due to extremely slushy conditions and a short section of Poplar Creek is less than perfect as it travels through a swamp with hummocks and frost heaves. Otherwise conditions are good to excellent.
Bearskin Lodge Ski Trail Reports 