Excellent snow conditions and grooming! We skied most of the trails east of Keats Ave at least once. Tracks were deeply set and there was little leaf/bark/stick debris. We were using waxed skis but the wax was hard enough and the debris was infrequent enough that it wasn't a problem. Great to have such a nice Nordic Center to warm up and have our tea after skiing.

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(Craig Wiklund, North Star Ski Touring Club)

Skied Savanna, North and Prairie this afternoon in classic tracks. The tracks are in great shape with little leaf or tree debris! There was a little bit of leaves on the North trail along Lake Elmo, but no where the same amount of leaves as yesterday on Brown's Pond. Very enjoyable ski.

(Barbara Kuzmak)

The classic tracks were set so nice! However, Mother Nature filled up the tracks with oak leaves and debris (because of the wind). I was using grip wax based skis. I left after 1/2 hour. It just wasn't fun constantly having to step out of the tracks. As one of the other posts suggests, maybe fish scales would now be better.

(Bryan Heinle)

I read the report about the leaves and I thought "it'll still be better than having no track yesterday, this will be fun." I was quickly proven wrong. The leaves managed to fully take me out a couple times- my watch tried to call an ambulance- so maybe bring skate skis instead of waxable classic. Skate trail had some leaf litter but didn't look terrible. Open areas were getting pretty windblown. Guessing fishscales or skins might navigate the leaves more successfully.

(Amber Glawe)

At 9:30am it looked like the groomer had just gone by with perfect corduroy and set track. We only did the SE trails, Brown's Pond, Flats, Hills. With the wind some leaves and sticks are showing up. The photo shows the worst that we saw and only in a few places. Great skiing. Thank you groomers! Perfect timing for the deep freeze coming!

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(William Buell)

Ugh. Way too much oak leaf litter everywhere to be enjoyable, and the few areas without leaf clog are wind blown. Skied the entire East side and had to skate ski with classic skis to do anything resembling skiing due to the leaves littering the tracks.

(Andrea Northwood)

The groomer was able to get an early start this morning and regroomed the East Side and set fresh tracks! Things are looking good condition!
Grooming Plans: Working on rolling the West Side trails this afternoon. They will be regrooming the trails tomorrow morning as well.

(Jen Garcia, Washington County Parks)

The track has been temporarily removed on the East side to reestablish the base and to ensure better classic conditions moving forward. The skate deck was repacked today. Overall skate conditions are still looking good. Grooming Plans: The groomer will be getting an early start tomorrow (3am/4am) to begin laying fresh tracks after the expected snowfall.

(Jen Garcia, Washington County Parks)

Skied the classic tracks at Lake Elmo Park from 12-1pm today. It was lightly snowing and a thin layer of new snow covered the skate deck and tracks which did not diminish track depth and made the downhill sections a bit easier and fun to ski down. Did Brown's Pond, the Flats, through the woods on green trail and finished on yellow back to the trailhead. Tracks were a bit used, but still very skiable, a little wind on the Flats which one would expect. The grayness of sky and background made skiing in some sections a bit of guesswork as I had trouble seeing where the tracks were, but just trusted my skis to go where they were supposed to go. Great skiing, great job at the grooming, can't say enough about how nice it is to have ski trails so well maintained at Lake Elmo, especially with all the use, citizen skiers and high school ski teams alike!

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(Harlan Jones)

The trails are in excellent shape. The half inch of new snow helped a lot....no hard pack, smooth glide. My skins had terrific kick.

(Ralph Schwartz)