We've had a great couple days of early season grooming and skiing after the most recent snowfall on Sunday night. The deck is starting to tighten after grooming, clearing skies yesterday and a low temperature of 7 this morning. Today mid teens with heavy moisture keeping the snow a bit softer and silkylike and providing beautiful frosty scenes. We have rolled, packed and combed on most of the trail system, around 55km. There are no track set. Best no track classic skiing remains on Sukkerbusk and the easy loop of JibFly. Best skating on the early season loop and Eira Bikwadinaa hill. The singletrack classic trails have been snowmobile packed and outer skate loops have been roll combed but not recommended to ski on, grooming purpose was to freeze down the base for the next snowfalls. Jonell and I classic skied last night and she was using her good skis and I was using B skis with no issue. Today I bumped into skiers that said they were using better skis. But due to the thin cover, occasional rock and rough spots, I recommend using early season skis or rock skis. Some of the larger lakes are starting to freeze over now as well. Grooming plans: We will be back out Wednesday morning combing out the early season loop. The west and east sides of the fat bike trails are open and rider packed and plan to groom those loops by end of the week.

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Trails were a pleasant surprise this morning! We went there expecting constant grass, stick, and rock dodging but were pleasantly surprised by some solid trail conditions. There was the occasional stick and thin spot on the trail, but overall, there is some stellar skiing to be had at Maplelag, as always. The trails were occasionally a little bumpy, and no classic tracks yet. Pictured is my Grandma smiling ear to ear on our first time around Sukkerbusk.

Photos:

(Trygve Rux)

A beautiful 2-3" of dense snow fell Sunday night. We were out grooming Sunday evening into Monday morning while it was snowing, mostly on the early season loop. Grooming plans: We will be out in the morning combing on the early season loop and also roll packing on 20-30km of trail. Recommended skiing on the early season loop.

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Love skiing at Maplelag...for the amount of snow, plenty of great groomed trail. And love the peace and quiet, beautiful scenery, and fresh air. Feel recharged. Can't wait to go back.

(Gina Kinzler)

We've stayed below freezing the past 48 hours and dropped down to the mid teens at night which has froze down the groomed trail and base making for nice early season skiing for the handful of folks that have been out. The base is very thin with rough/bare spots but grateful to be skiing! Classic skied with Jonell and skate skied with Paul Schommer. The early season loop is providing the best conditions including the newly named "Eira Bikwadinaa" hill (formerly Suicide Hill) Scheduling: The store at the "Hygge" day use cabin will be open Sunday 11am-1pm.

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

We had one of the Ginzu groomers out early this morning combing out dusting of new snow after roll compacting yesterday. The same trails groomed yesterday were groomed today. We are managing warm ground underneath which is making for tricky grooming. The grooming is compacting the deck however and seems to be helping with the freezing down of the deck combined with temps hovering in the mid 20's.
I went out for a ski in the afternoon and found skiing to be a bit better than expected. The thawing from underneath is slowing down and there's a nice ice layer forming which makes for better skiing despite the thin and open spots. Since a few folks have inquired about skiing, we will have the trails open on the groomed trail for any diehards. There are a lot of of trouble spots but with careful footwork (good early season skill practice) there is some fair early season to be had. Grooming plans: We probably won't be able to groom again unless we get new snow.

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

We picked up enough snow to get out for the first ski and groom of the year today. The snow was dry and cold thanks to temps in the mid 20's which made for nice skiing and grooming. The ground is still very warm and we groomed around 10km of trail to try and get frost to set up on Sap Run, Sukkerbusk, Eira Bikwaadina Hill, and the early season loop. We will do what we can to try and have these trails open soon! Great to see white and be grooming and skiing!

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)