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!
Bearskin Lodge Ski Trail Reports 