Beautiful day at ABR. Skied morning and afternoon. Ironwood area picked up a couple inches overnight. Single digits temps, freshly groomed in new snow made for great skiing on VR30. Full depth tracks on main trails. A very few of the low lying classic only trails did not have tracks set but coverage there was still fine for good skis. I'm sure this will smooth out in the upcoming days with snow in the forecast every day.

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(Sue Schroeder)

We picked up another 2-3 inches overnight and regroomed 62 km this morning. The new Highlands Trail is open with reroutes and additional km in the woods and around the bluffs. The new Tamarack 2 Track ending is open now extending the trail to a 12 km route to Jason Park, mostly two tracks one direction. The trails are in mid winter condition.

(Eric Anderson, ABR Trails)

We brought our youth ski team up this past weekend from East Central Wisc. and then a couple of us coaches stayed to ski on Monday for three hours. The conditions each day were better than the previous day for both classical and skate skiing...simply marvelous! Lots of happy faces! Great job Eric, Angela and ABR Staff!

(Steve Scharrer)

A winter wonderland at ABR trails. Snowing this am. I skied classic only and combination trails. The deck appeared generally very good for skating with a few icy spots. Classic trails had an inch newly fallen snow in them which slowed things down slightly. However the depth of the classical tracks is very good. The great conditions made the four hour trip from Madison rewarding!

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(Ron Fabrizius)

The daily snow and cold temps have been improving the trails every day. We opened Sulo's today and did our final preps out in the Highlands so we can open the Highlands in the morning. The new section of Tamarack 2 track will also open in the morning. This makes the gentle rolling trail a 12 km route to Jason Park. The Highlands has two thin rough areas on the exit hills, use caution or walk down the hills. 62 km of trails open!

(Eric Anderson, ABR Trails)

Many trails were excellent - Bard's Bump, Meadows, Blueberry. River and Memory some ice where low spots are frozen but there's not yet enough snow to churn it up. I did not do Peltonnen as with hundreds of skiers ahead of me I found even small hills on Bump were scraped and hard to edge. Hats off to Eric and crew for giving us the first glimpse of winter!

(Dave Minden)

Trails are really smoothing out well and covering is good. The main trails are skiing like mid winter today. We have 75 km we are grooming and 42 km we are skiing. Of the 42 km we are skiing, 30 km is great. We have classic tracks on most everything, there are thin areas under conifers but skiers are very happy.

(Eric Anderson, ABR Trails)

We packed about 65 km, again today and trails are freezing down well. We're up to 3 feet of snowfall for this season, that's double last year at this time. It is still snowing lake effect... on the radar. We should have 25 k ready for 10 am Thursday. We just came in from grooming tonight it was snowing pretty hard.

(Eric Anderson, ABR Trails)

We have been packing all day after 4-6 inches of snow. The temps are freezing down nicely. We plan to open Thursday morning at 10 am, we expect about 25-30 km open for Thursday and more for the weekend as we freeze the wet area down.

(Eric Anderson, ABR Trails)

Present: Well it looks like it is turning into winter! We have been cruising the trails on snowmobiles and tracked vehicles the last week clearing the buried brush from the diminished base and installing new maps and signs. We have an inch or so of hard base(ice) as of today in most wooded areas. Fields are a bit bare but the main trail seemed to survive so far with an icy base.
Forecast: We have groomers coming in the morning to groom the forecast snow. We can not count on the snow until we see it but the forecasts are all online. We need 3 inches or so of dense snow to reopen. The base is frozen. We will pack the snow as it falls, except for Tuesday night from 5:00 PM-Wed morning, when we host the ABR Christmas Party to honor our hard working crew of workers and volunteers!
Future:  We will continue to groom and update twice daily with conditions as the weather changes to cold and snow over the next few days. I expect and hope that we will reopen Thursday for skiing. I know we will not open Tuesday or Wednesday for planning purposes.
Conclusion: watch the website and forecast, we can not answer the phone for all the calls.

(Eric Anderson, ABR Trails)