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.
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.
Bearskin Lodge Ski Trail Reports 