Not groomed, but actually pretty good skiing. Colder temps made a breakable crust, and the fresh dusting of snow did not hurt either. Did not ski continuously down Storebakken, still pretty fast and a little tough at the runout. Did various loops above and below. Was good enough for an enjoyable three hour ski though. Grooming plans: Snow guns are going and the City plans on flattening and grooming the existing snow piles Thursday. No classic track at this time.

Photos:

(Jim Bennett)

Snowmaking trail was not groomed last night. Somewhat icy and rutted in places. Going up and down the hill was a little too exciting for me, so mostly skied around on top.

(Jim Bennett)

Santa came late but he finally got Google Maps to work, located Gamehaven, and left a nicely groomed trail on machine made snow. If one just goes straight, out and back, it's about 0.7km, though I inserted some loopys and zig zags and managed a 1.4km "loop". Was getting snow cone like on Storebakken runout when I left. Overall nice skiing, certainly best ever in Rochester after a week of 30s and 40s plus an inch of rain. BTW, would encourage other skiers to offer respectful feedback, good or bad, frequently. It's necessary to make this project successful.

Photos:

(Jim Bennett)

Took a chance and went out late morning when I thought the snow might soften up. Did hill repeats on Storbakken, starting about 2/3 of the way up until the snow got softer and I felt safe to do the whole distance. Actually not bad skiing. Yesterday the City provided some concrete, portable sign bases that I used to place temporary signage on the sledding hill. Today, it seemed like the signage helped, but it will only be satisfactory once the ski trail gets a lot of use, which in turn is not likely to happen until we get regular grooming (and some more length). I do not have any knowledge, at this point, regarding grooming plans.

(Jim Bennett)

Skied The Pipe, Meander, and machine made snow on Rattler. Required quick avoidance skills to miss grass and dirt on the natural snow trails. This is probably the end of the natural trails for now. The City has not tilled the machine made snow for a few days now so it is a big sheet of ice, and thus not great to ski.
FYI: The main entrance to the park is on 50th St SE; rough address is 1301, (upper lot), not the old, lower lot off of 45th street. Neither Google or Apple Maps seems to be able to find the main entrance, which seems to cause a lot of confusion for skiers and shedders. Plus, some get sent to Gamehaven Scout Reservation, which has no grooming or sledding. Best to just look for 50th St SE off of St. Bridget RD SE.

(Jim Bennett)

The only areas with adequate snow and grooming are the base of the sled hill and the sled hill itself. (Lots of kids having fun on the sled hill, which is great!) Snow makers sit dormant despite perfect snowmaking weather. Other trails in the lower end of the park appear to have adequate snow, but no effort to groom. This is really disappointing.

(David Sas)

The Pipe, Meander, and the .7 km section of machine made snow on Rattler are groomed for freestyle. There are a few thin spots but quite good skiing overall. Hammer and lower Rattler are not groomed, total groomed is about 7 km. If you want to avoid going up and down Storebakken (Norwegian for The Big Hill) use the upper parking lot, not the lower.

Photos:

(Jim Bennett)

Freshly groomed this morning, great skiing for the snow we have! Snowmaking was happening in the lower area. Skied the upper area and there are some areas with grass coming through. Not deep enough for classic tracks. Hopefully this snow stays!

Photos:

(Jennifer Dens Higano)

The machine-made snow trail was tilled and combed this morning, but there was a couple of inches of new snow on top so it was hard to tell. Currently 0.7Km of the Rattler trail has machine made snow (out and back) though there is another section to the right from the bottom of the sledding hill that makes the total out and back ski almost exactly 1 Km. Watch out for the water hose crossing the trail in that section. Grooming plans: Plan is to groom again tomorrow morning.

(Jim Bennett)

Stopped at GH to see the snowmaking progress. The good news: snow was being spread at the bottom of the big by the piston bully at 8:30 am. The bad news: both snow guns were sitting idle, temp 28F.

Photos:

(Stephen Broski)