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)

So nice to be on firm trails in sunshine. The cooler temps of late must be allowing granules to form and stay together better. Easier skating and the classic tracks looked rock solid.

Photos:

(Dean Kleinhans)

All of the 2.5 K loop was re-groomed with deep and firm tracks for striders and a firm though granular deck for skaters. There was enough loose snow on the skate deck to get an edge and the uphills were holding up as well. Rex grip gold worked well as did purple power grip.

(Doug Schumacher)

Skated the east side at about 2 PM. Very thin layer of ice with snow sprinkles on top; better than no sprinkles. They can't do anything with this track until they get more snow and it just barely cleared my (very low) bar of, Yes, it was worth it.

(Russ Ludeke)

Started at 6:30 am and never left the 2.5 k loop. Great classic track, a bit softer than usual, temps right around freezing. Perfect klister conditions, fast with great kick. Put in way too many hours at Elm, but when the skiing is so consistently good, its so much fun.

(Jim Smith)

Multi Use: Attempted skijoring just before noon, starting from the Vinewood trailhead. Snow cover was was very thin, maybe 2 in. with foot traffic exposing pavement, so we didn't set out. The Two Fangs were irate and we went to the off leash park for a while. Seems like Maple Grove received little snow this time around; we were more fortunate in Plymouth.

(Steve Evans)

Valley (man-made) is the only trail open. Earlier this afternoon there was a mix of firm/fast and slow/sugary sections. Traffic increased significantly when the teams showed up for the race it turned to mashed potatoes pretty fast.

(Brad Johnson)