Conditions: Mostly fair, entire outer loop very skatable but no tracks set.
Skated Northern Lights, Valley, Lake Trail, and the Creek trail both Thursday night and this morning. Very skatable with few organic areas to avoid. Areas of the northern lights trail were the worst. I even skated some of the multi-use trail last night-not recommended but doable.

(Steve Deckert)

Conditions: Very good, freshly groomed.
Skied most trails, most in real fine condition for skating, do not know the name of the trails yet but some are tracked and look great.

(Mike LeBlanc)

Conditions: Outer loop: Good enough for B skis, nice base.
Skied the Outer loop late afternoon, while high school meet was going on. Very quiet off the man-made snow loop, but conditions were quite nice. A few sections where there is a depression in the middle of the trail, but most of it was well groomed. Coverage was fine for B skis -- and before man-made snow came along, it would have been classified as good skis conditions. Nice late afternoon ski, and so much better than laps on the same old terrain.

Photos:

(Bruce Adelsman)

Conditions: Like The Outer Limits: There is nothing wrong with them.
Of course the man-made snow is perfect. But they have now groomed the outer trails. A little washbordy and a few uneven-depth-of-snow spots, given lack of snow, but hey: it's real snow. Very B-skiable and even A skis, if you are careful/experienced. Only a couple dirty/schmutzy spots and very minor debris (easily avoidable). Even downhills not too bad; just take it slow. Multi-use trail needs a little love--as evinced by dog walkers deciding to use the newly, nicely groomed ski trails.

(Andrea Ochmann)

Conditions: Man-made loop freshly groomed corduroy skate deck and deep, solid classic tracks all the way around.
The man-made loop was beautiful today, as good as I've ever seen at any major resort out west. Deep, solid classic tracks all the way around. The groomer had just made a pass when I got there around 9:30 and the skate deck was fresh corduroy. Skied classic and skate. Great kick in the tracks and rode them all the way around, including the downhill through the donut but the tracks did seem a bit slow (understandable given the -7F temperature). Skate deck was painfully slow (perhaps a colder wax and maybe something for static would have helped). My lap times for skate were significantly slower than for classic today. What I could see of the Northern Lights trail and the trail to the multi-use path indicated they had not been groomed and looked hard and crusty. Hardly anybody skiing today too, so a nice quiet break from the crowds.

(Leif Irgens)

Conditions: Outside loop thin, very firm and lumpy with no surface structure or set tracks. Northern Lights trail conditions very similar. Man-made loop conditions fantastic.
Striding the natural-snow trails in late afternoon was tough and not enjoyable - not recommended. Skating looked better but probably challenging as well. Man-made loop tracks were wonderful as usual - solid and great grip with Toko blue (left on skis from 25deg Birkie-Trail skiing last weekend - skis were fast today so no reason to change).

(Pete Thurmes)

Conditions: Great conditions for striding.
The track was well set - had great grip this morning using Rex Power Grip green - wax held up through 15+k. Looked like northern lights and some of the outer trails were rolled - but no tracks for classic.

(Scott Greymont)

Conditions: Sloooooow (and sticky).
New snow between yesterday and today not groomed in/rolled on N. Lights (or outer trails, per the guy parked next to me who was brave enough to try Creek on rock skis). Yesterday's seemed groomed into man-made loop, but today's was not, and still snowing at 3 PM when I left and you could hear the skate skis squeak. Tracks were pretty OK--I only used fish scales because I didn't want to mess around with klister or super-sticky kick wax. Guy who passed me was using "red of some sort" and he was doing pretty well.

(Andrea Ochmann)

Conditions: Fresh grooming with deep solid track on the Valley Trail this morning. The skate deck was great too. I skied from around 10:30 am till noon.
The first trip around on the woodies went kind of slow as expected. The kick was great, no need to get out of track up hill. The rest of the laps were on the A set of no wax skis. The track ran fast. It was great to ski in a track that did not have bumps in it while learning a new set of skis. I did not ski the track downhill through the donut(?) due to the speed of the downhill turn. Out of track skiing was fine. There's factory glide wax on the skis at the moment so I can't tell you what that is. It will be Fast Wax HF of some flavor by the time Seeley Hills steps off. With use, and there were not many skiers out, grip on the track improved. Grip was a bit picky early or I was missing something. There's more to learn here. A relatively short loop like Valley is a great opportunity to work the core skills. I blew up easily today due to hammering on the woodies a couple of days ago. Or is it the fact we're a month behind on ski season?

(Jeff Bolte)

Conditions: Multi-Use: Bumpy and very fast, thin firm base, ungroomed. Valley: Firm with a thin layer of soft snow, well groomed, fast. Teal FastWax put on for MU, worked well on Valley, too.
Skijored the Multi-Use around noon with the dogs teamed for the first time this year. Super fast, we got around in a little over 20 minutes. Amazing ride, especially considering they pulled single yesterday. The snow is well compacted from lots of foot traffic; poles can be used now in short pulls without skidding. Still plenty of snow cover, maybe 2 in thick with pavement showing only in a few tiny spots. Spent some time at dusk on Valley with Stevie as the ski meet was breaking up. Trail was nice, well groomed, fast, very little sugar on hills, moderate traffic.

(Steve Evans)