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)

Conditions: Excellent. Cloudy, light winds, 20 degrees. 50 of 64km fresh groomed past two days. Select grooming planned for Saturday morning.
Friday ending a great week of skiing. This week we have been skiing the fresh groomed and the trails that had new snow from Monday but not fresh groomed and its all great. Caught a guy walking on the trails today and told him he should be skiing instead of walking but said something about equipment issues.

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(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Excellent!! Sunny, 7 degrees and light winds. 15km new tracks set today, 5km of skate lanes fresh groomed including Suicide Hill.
The inch or two of new snow mixed with the sugar snow groomed up perfect this morning and setting up nicely with the single digit temps. Skiing doesn't get much better. Trails not fresh groomed still skiing well on firm and well defined tracks. More grooming on Thursday. Good luck to all schools this week of Sections that trained at Maplelag earlier this winter.

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(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Very good to Excellent. Close to 1" new snow today. 30 degrees.
A great weekend of skiing with ideal temps and nice snow conditions. Took a classic ski today on single tracked Roy's Run. The new snow made for bit slower skiing but very quiet and peaceful in the woods, beautiful ski. Skiers checking in today requesting tracks to be left alone with the fresh snow on top so only fresh tracks set on select trails this week. Tracks will be reset on Wed and Thurs and skate lanes touched up tomorrow and later in week. First two pictures from Sunday.

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(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Good to Excellent. Clouds giving way to sunshine, single digit temps. Winds picking up in evening. 52 of 64km fresh groomed. Beautiful day in the woods.
Skate trails groomed up very nicely today. Classic trails with better snow to work with groomed up just about perfect. Faster, but not icy. Enough texture for edging and what not. Some trails a bit more crunchy. All trails groomed today except for two and those will be groomed Saturday morning. Fun to see what critter can stay on top of the crust and which cannot. Should be a great weekend of skiing.

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(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Good to Excellent. Early morning low of -28, warming!! to a high of -12. Beautiful sunshine, light winds. Frozen granular, dusting new.
Once the temp climbed to -20, I set out grooming about 6km of double track for the skiers today. It was tough grooming for sure, erasing concrete tracks and re setting new but it went much better than expected and the little snow we did received helped out with the mixing process. The new tracks were 95% complete on average. Later afternoon I skied those 6km times three and thought it was great, despite the cold. Skied a few sections of the windblown and it was very, very slow. Grooming will resume tomorrow on as many trails as possible including the skate lanes which should groom up quite nicely.

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(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Blowing snow. -18 at 5pm. Inch or so new accumulation on top of firm 4-7" base.
Great skiing on the weekend leading into Monday afternoon, even after the warm up. Was able to ski each afternoon to check things out and everything is holding out nicely and in great shape. The snow was relatively dry yesterday afternoon before our almost 60 temperature change in 24 hours. Did not stop "Monte's Movers", Bob Montebello and the Bemidji area groomers who are here for a few days from skiing this morning. We did not have any rain before the cold front came last night and about an inch of new snow accumulation the past 24 hours making for slow conditions with the extreme cold. Hope to begin grooming tomorrow afternoon otherwise Thursday morning. Plan to have all 64k re-groomed before the weekend. Skate photo from Saturday, classic from Sunday.

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Conditions: Excellent. 40 of 64km groomed this morning.
All skate trails groomed and new tracks set on about 25km of trail this morning. The outer single tracked trails groomed up real nice, using the inch or two of fresh snow from earlier in the week with the granulated stuff. Remaining tracks are in great shape and will be left alone. Found this guy throwing sticks on the trail but he had a pretty cool hat on so I didn't say anything (see photos).

Photos:

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)