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)

Conditions: Excellent conditions for classic and skate on the snow making loop.
It was pretty quiet out at Elm this morning with only a few people out and about. Great skiing as usual with excellent grooming.

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(Bill Lundberg)

Conditions: Good. Decent glide, hard packed. Cloudy and windy, turning sunny and beautiful later on.
Skied a few times around the Valley Trail, did a loop on Northern Lights and ventured out onto Lake while the kids were at their MYSL meeting. Valley was well groomed, flat, firm and had good glide, easy to ski on, sugar on the steep hills. Northern Lights had a decent hard packed base and was better than expected, a little bumpy with some earth showing through here and there, easy to avoid. Glide was equivalent to Valley. Did not try Cowabunga hill, didn't trust it would be covered well.
Lake and the Multi-Use bypass both had a hard base, not too smooth but very skiable, good glide. Parts of Lake were more exposed than Northern Lights, but easy to avoid the bad stuff for the most part. Teal FastWax worked well until the sun came out mid afternoon, then became a little slow.

(Steve Evans)

The snowmaking loop is in excellent shape; the snow guns were going full blast and the wind blew the new snow on the steep uphill and half the gradual up to the chalet making them slow. I skied the thicket trail and it was fully covered with some dirt spots but thin and bumpy. It is skiable; it was a break from the mind numbing hamster wheel. The big downhill on the thicket is closed; there is signage rerouting skiers.

(Ralph Schwartz)

Conditions: Thin but firm. No classic tracks other than manmade loop.
The outer loop at Elm was nice but it only has about 1-2 inches of firm packed snow. It skied better than northern lights which was pretty flat and packed. The manmade loop is complete with a lot of smiling faces and the snow is good and fast. The only classic tracks out there are on the manmade loop. We need probably 4 more inches to set us up for classic tracks.

(Luke Malm)

Conditions: Classic & skate on the man-made loop basically perfect.
Skied classic on the man-made loop at noon. The classic tracks couldn't really have been any better all the way around except for the wall. Overspray from the snow guns turned the wall into about 4-6" of soft powder. The few strides I took on the skate deck showed it to be like Goldilocks porridge - just right. I did see a couple of skiers head out over the bridge toward the multi-use trail and also saw someone loop out over the Northern Lights trail so those areas are apparently skiable, perhaps depending on one's definition of "skiable".

(Leif Irgens)

Conditions: Classic very good Valley Trail, fair on Northern Lights.
Skied today and only bad part was down the steep hill on Northern Lights Trail. It is thin with some dirt showing.

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(Wayne Nelson)

Conditions: Solid skate deck in spite of heavy traffic.
Skated the 2.5 km man-made loop at noon. Much more crowded today (had to drive through three different parking lots before finding parking in the small lot near the yellow house). Skate deck had seen a lot of traffic and was pretty firm but with the sun and warmer temperatures, it was still soft enough for even us lesser talented skiers to hold an edge. A lot more people on the trail today and traffic was a frequent issue. Lots of people skiing in groups, 3-4 abreast, stopping and standing in the middle of the trail, etc. A little courtesy and awareness on the man-made loops would help a lot until some natural snow allows more people to diffuse to trails with natural snow and scale back the crowds. Classic tracks looked good all around the loop but I only sampled them coasting on the occasional downhill.

(Leif Irgens)

Conditions: Classic tracks solid, skate deck firm.
Skied classic on the full 2.5 km man made loop at noon. Parking lots were full but it seemed like only maybe 2-3 dozen skiers on the loop (lots of snowboarders I suppose). The classic tracks were solid almost all the way around except where over-spray from the snow guns were filling them in faster than skiers were packing them down. The tracks seemed really slow to me but maybe that's because I haven't pulled out my waxable classic skis and am still skiing on skins. I only took a few strides on the skate deck but it seemed to be a reasonable blend of firm with enough purchase to hold an edge.

(Leif Irgens)