Superb snow! The Eloise Butler and Quaking Bog trails are in fantastic shape. 95% of the snow is clean, soft snow that feels like the old fashioned mid-January snow that we used to enjoy years ago. There is maybe 5% that is somewhat dirty but easy to avoid. Skating is fantastic; classic tracks are intermittent in Eloise Butler and not present in most of the Bog due to the snow depth. Lots of folks out today enjoying the pristine conditions in the woods. Get it while you can!

Photos:

(Bill Oyler)

Good conditions. Groomed classic and skate deck. Classic tracks everywhere possible. No classic tracks in the quaking bog area due to the trail not being wide enough.
The past few days we have been cleaning up the course marking left over from the Loppet festival and doing some trail maintenance. That is the reason for there being snowmobile tracks that are not groomed out.

(Jonah Parady, Loppet Foundation)

Skied both sides of the South Wirth trails between 3-4 pm. Coverage was good but the skate lane was at times marginal due to a lot of recent snowmobile tracks and ruts - it seemed odd that they were not grooming, just driving around. It appeared that grooming had occurred post Loppet, no signs of fat bike traffic. Classic tracks were quite shallow or non-existent.

(Genevieve Johnson)

Skied Skyline, Tornado Alley, Elouise Butler and Bog trails. Eloise B and Bog trails are surprisingly in poor condition. The skate deck is dug up and trashed by it seems by grooming snowmobile while the classic track set is too far to the right bringing skier in conflict with bushes, tree branches and soft snow conditions from going off the packed trail. Tornado Alley and JD Gardens a little better. I'd stay off till the trail crew resets it and posts a repair report.

(Greg Klave)

As part of my ski of the whole Loppet race course, I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent coverage and clean snow for the JD Rivers loop as well as Wirth Lake and Jar Hill, which I hadn't skied yet this season. No icy or dirty sections at all! I followed the signs to the newish road crossing at Glenwood and the Wirth Beach House lot, and proceeded over the pond and "back side" path around the pavilion, which was in surprisingly great shape. Eloise Butler was also in great shape, with just enough gentle grooming to get rid of the ice but not expose any dirt or rocks. The Quaking Bog is also in good shape although there are a few stretches with leaves and forest debris. The connection down by the 394 sound wall isn't bad at all, and the sidewalk across the freeway has plenty of snow and no ice. Note that classic tracks are pretty sparse in these areas due to snow depth. See Part 3 of my review under Chain of Lakes for the next segment.

Photos:

(Bill Oyler)

Skated the Front 9 (Skyline), tornado alley, JD Rivers, Jar Hill, some of E Butler and all of Quaking Bog. First - really fun. In terms of quality, my main impression was that the entire area needs to be groomed a few more times. The base is better than it was a few days ago, but still is fairly icy in more than a few sections and would benefit from being evened out and having the icy base ground further and mixed with the top inch of snow. It was all skiable but enough uneven and icy areas and even enough thin areas to make me wonder about the 'good' and 'very good' condition ratings used to characterize these areas. I would rate them as 'fair' right now. I think the coverage is generally ok with a few exceptions, but it needs more grooming. Having said that, still pretty darn fun to get off the manmade area and do some exploring.

(Jim Carlen)

Skied part of the Front 9, and all of Tornado Alley, JD Rivers and Eloise Butler. Trails are in good shape, with the new snow helping a lot. Good coverage throughout. In some places there are icy, rutted conditions under the new snow but not in a lot of places and it seems like these areas should get better with more grooming. I also skied the Judy loop -- although it had been groomed, it is quite icy and rutted underneath in many spots. Hoping this gets some attention before the race on Sunday.

(Patty Carlen)

Skied most of the trails south of Glenwood ave at 9pm. The trails most likely haven't been groomed since last weekends race. There were a couple of dirty, icy spots on downhills that had me taking me skis off and walking. Nice to ski the natural trails but you will have to dodge ice and dirt. Hopefully the light dusting of snow this morning helped.

(Mark Bushinski)

Cleanest snow I've skied on at South Wirth in many years! I enjoyed several laps of the Eloise Butler loop and the Quaking Bog loop, as well as the Chain of Lakes (including the east and west land trails off Cedar Lake), and the snow coverage is fantastic throughout. I only saw one twig the entire time. Even the I-394 bridge crossing is the cleanest it's ever been! Brownie tunnel is also in good shape. The classic tracks are intermittent in Eloise Butler and the Bog, but present throughout most of the lakes. Brownie and Cedar were the best of the lakes; Lake of the Isles has a much narrower groomed surface; and the lake formerly known as Calhoun does not have much grooming, presumably due to the earlier report of snowmobile issues. Should be an excellent course for this Saturday's classic Loppet point-to-point races, and I'm super excited for the Super Bowl Sunday Loppet skate point to point races!

Photos:

(Bill Oyler)

Skied the North Wirth trail east of the Parkway, J.D. Rivers, Wirth Lake, and Eloise Butler. Classic tracks in set only to Glenwood Ave., and in very good condition. South of Glenwood, it had obviously been rolled, but there were no classic tracks in Eloise Butler and the track was soft and well-chewed. Extremely good coverage, though. Quite and peaceful, especially with the snow mist that was falling.

(Lawrence Pry)