Skied over noon hour. Manmade snow loop in fabulous shape; classic track firm and fast, no ice. Skate deck firm as well.

(Ralph Schwartz)

Just to add that Northern Lights is open although I did not go out there. TRPD website says packed and fair.

(Mark Lahtinen)

It gets old reporting on the same 2.5 k of ground ice, but in all honesty, when it's well groomed, like today, it really is fun. The tracks were hard and fast, and the skate deck also looked good. And hard wax gave good kick. You can leave the klister and skins home today. Maybe it'll be different tomorrow when it warms up, but that's the scoop at the moment.

(Ken Tobacman)

Late morning ski on man made snow loop. Trail in excellent shape; track firm, not icy. Skate lane firm with enough ground snow/ice to have good edge. Fast. Rode multigrade klister, rex gold, rex 1814 possible wax choices. Wind brutal.

(Ralph Schwartz)

Temp 13F, windchill felt like single digits. It's amazing how good the ski trails looked at Elm Creek valley trail loop for tonight's Elm Creek ski race series, for both skating and classic races. Coming back to MN for the CNY, I am so glad to visit with old friends at Elm Creek. Great race organization and volunteer crew.

(Amy Xu)

The mush is gone on the manmade. Nice firm classic tracks and faster than blazes. Could've used a little more klister but it was fast enough to double pole everything except the two bigger climbs. Skate lane looked rim and fast also.

(Mark Lahtinen)

After some pretty nice, fast conditions last night, the man-made snow at EC has again turned to mush. I started off on classic, with Start Green & Blue mixed. Kick was fine with those, but snow was very slow, even with skied-in tracks. When I switched to skate, I knew it would be just as bad--groomers were out, but snow immediately broke apart as skiers came behind them (sugary/sandy); it was very obvious it was going to become a pretty deep "snow-cone" by this afternoon/evening. On the upside, it's a good excuse to go slow & work on technique (?!).

(Andrea Ochmann)

Only the Valley Trail is open. 2.5k of man-made snow with a 1/2" of fresh mother nature made snow on top. Classic skied this morning. Tracks were "set" and "slow".

(Mark Skinner)

Only Valley is open. Fresh grooming this morning which unfortunately made for 2.5k of sugar. Not much we can do, we need some snow! Still it's good to be able to be out skiing.

(Brad Johnson)

Only the snow-making loop is skiable. It appears the groomers did not get out this morning. The classic tracks are okay, but I'd suggest that you skate somewhere else today, unless you enjoy wading through 2 to 4 inches of sugar.

(Ken Tobacman)