Conditions: Good to Excellent! Mid 30's, bright sunshine and no wind. Areas of softness and glazing, mainly on southern exposed.
I skied this afternoon during the sweet spot time and think it was one of the best classic outings of the year. Fantastic late February weather, about as good as it gets. The trails that had been groomed late Friday night and early Sunday morning seemed to be the best skiing but all the short sections of trail I checked out were good. My kick wax for the various conditions was working great which doesn't seem to happen often during the melt/freeze thing. I jumped on Skaters Waltz for a while and the skate veranda was very nice. Trails are holding out great after a record number of skier visits during a Birkie weekend and lots of smiling faces over the weekend. Select trails will be groomed tomorrow morning and during the week.

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Excellent!! All 64km fresh groomed for the weekend with tracks pressed yesterday and last night setting up nicely during the night. Dusting of fluff on top from this morning. Skate lanes polished this morning.
Its hard to beat a morning like today. Mid teens, fresh snow delicately falling and somehow clinging to the smallest of branches. Clearing at day break allowing for bright sunshine to fill the woods. Great weekend of skiing on tap.

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: -8F Sunny. Lots of new snow. Great base, nice and firm.
Headed over to Maplelag in the mid afternoon and found the temps felt great with the sun warming things up. Started out with classic, doing JibFly, Twin Lakes, and Sukkerbusk. The tracks were PERFECT, firm and pretty fast considering the temps. Next I switched skis and headed out on Skaters Waltz. It had been freshly groomed and was also great skiing. As usual Maplelag has awsome skiing thanks to Jay's perfect grooming.

(Lars Ellefson)

Conditions: Good to Excellent. Morning low -28. Hi -4. Arctic chaser dropping temp back down to -25 at 9pm. Areas of windblown snow and these areas were slow today.
Blade day on the PISTEN BULLY. Transition area from lake to trail and first km built up on Lotvola cup course, gap jump built and snow pulled in from side, leveling warps from snowmobile grooming on skaters waltz.
Skated less than an hour after grooming as Arctic chaser was dropping the temp down and skating was pretty fast considering the temp was -15...had set up quickly and the sugar pulled from the side made for nice surface which to ski upon. Grooming for real on Thursday after bit more maintenance grooming tomorrow.

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

An excellent day on the trails with a mixed bag of weather. Upper 20's to start the day followed by prairie clipper and 1-2" of new snow in the afternoon, wind and temps falling to 0 by evening. 40km of trail fresh groomed today. Tomorrow grooming action on trails used for Lotvola Cup race.

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Excellent. High near 40, sunny, light winds most of the day. Falling temps and few flakes of snow.
Ski lessons late afternoon found the snow relatively dry and trails holding out great. Few southern exposed areas glazed over from softening earlier in the day. Overall very pleasant on the trails and lots of smiling faces. Grooming in the early morning on select trails will pull up drier snow. With the warmer temps today, we had to send out the nude skiing patrol!

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Perfect! 4-5" of new snow the past 24 hours. 8" new snow past 7 days. Clear, then cloudy, then clearing. 6 pm temp at -10, light winds.
Just four trails short have having the entire trail system front end renovator/Pisten Bully groomed today. (Lucky's Loype ginzu groomed) Those four trails will be groomed tomorrow morning as well as some clean up on trails groomed today, leaving the entire 64km trail system fresh groomed for the weekend. Lows near -30 tonight should act as good facilitator for set up process. Touch up grooming as needed during the Prez weekend.

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Freshly groomed after blowing and cold on Saturday. Excellent trails on Sunday in -10F degrees sunshine.
Our annual visit to Maplelag, and as usual, the best groomed trails in the state, if not the Lower 48 (haven't been to Alaska). Blizzard conditions on Saturday made for slow skiing, but the trails were freshly groomed on Sunday, and we were back up to speed! Beautiful sunshine and serene woods.

(Margit Johnson)

Conditions: Clear. -23 morning low climbing to high of -12. Wind not as bad today. Excellent conditions on fresh groomed, fair to good on windblown. 17km Pisten Bully groomed, 3km singletrack Ginzu groomed this morning. 1-20" of windblown snow on trails not fresh groomed today.
The grooming equipment moaned and creaked at 23 below this morning but the PB was necessary to bust up the drifts where drifted and drastically improved the skiing today. Skiing on the fresh groomed was very nice today and tracks were surprisingly fast. The wind did not blow snow into the tracks making for fine conditions. Very slow going for skating and trails not fresh groomed.
Trails should be groomed daily this week.

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Stormy!!! Early morning low of +15 dropping to -10 at 4pm. Wind gusting strong, areas of drifted snow. 1-2" new accumulation past 12 hours.
This morning I set new tracks on about 20km of trail. Skiers heading out right after I groomed reported nice skiing once in the woods. I groomed the start area which is in the open up to 12 times but the wind kept filling in the tracks. Before lunch I groomed Skaters Waltz twice bumping into a few skiers and the grooming improved the conditions. Three hours later I skied a couple of laps on Skaters Waltz and it was really slow even though it had set up.... but was still fun skiing, felt good. I had waxed my skis carefully for the conditions but they still were slow due to the new snow and windblown action...hard time getting up to speed when skiing hard for a while. Grooming will resume once wind settles down.

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)