Skied Lake, Creek and the man made trails around 1pm. Everything was so good! Very fast. I was worried things would be icy, but was so happily surprised how nice the skate deck was groomed up. No ice, not too mushy either. Glad I made it out!

Photos:

(Christy Dolph)

Skied monarch because it was close to home, had to leave by 11 am. Monarch had not been groomed for a while, with foot tracks all over it. But foot tracts lessened as I got further away from the nature center. Tracks were extremely icy. I used my skin techs because I don't want to use sticky wax. One sharp turn to the left one a downhill was troublesome because snow plowing was not effective with the icy snow. Saw a lady with two dogs pulling a small dog sled on the bike trail with her inside, but she ran behind on the long hill.

(Earl Stabenow)

Skated yesterday; classic today. Serious degradation to classic tracks on outer trails--even Eagle-- in that time, and even the skate lane on Creek/Lake was looking sad. I have seen the groomers last two days when skating between 10:30 AM - Noon. Northern Lights track was still passable, but probably not for long, and all skate lanes looked like they needed to be combed once the sun goes down. Outer trails really best for B skis. Manufactured snow still in great shape, though, and A-skiable. Was on skins with moveable bindings and was OK, though probably double poled a lot more than usual. Skins or liquid spray kilster = probably best, depending on how much work you want to put into prep and how quickly you get annoyed with imperfect technique.

(Andrea Potyondy-Smith)

Skied man made snow loop/Valley around 8:00 am. Hard fast snow, this is the time in the season to ski early at Elm Creek before temperature goes above freezing. Excellent grooming as usual, fast deck, not crowded.

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(Bernard Cerles)

I classic skied all snowmaking trails and most of the natural snow trails, including Lake, Eagle, Creek, Northern Lights, and Valley. Grooming was great. The set tracks were nearly perfect everywhere! Deep and well defined and almost no leaf/stick/bark debris. Skate deck looked excellent everywhere. The bright sun and high temperature was softening the snow everywhere the sun was shining on the trail, so glide generally wasn't great. But kick, with my skin skis, was excellent!

Photos:

(Craig Wiklund, North Star Ski Touring Club)

Skied Valley - groomed and in very good condition. Started getting soft around 2 - 2:30, especially on Northern Lights, but still good. No trail debris.

(Karen Peters)

Ventured out to the Creek Trail after work on Thursday and found excellent conditions, so good I did it twice! Nice to get off the man-made snow loop and into the woods, although very few skiers present anywhere at Elm.

(Mark Rathbun)

Did the Valley and Northern Lights trails. Both skate and classic, groomed and classic tracks were scary fast. Very hard corduroy on skate deck making downhills quite 'chattery.' School kids on downhill areas were having a ball.

(Steve Paladie)

I tried skating the Valley Trail a bit after noon. It still hadn't been groomed, so I was dealing with about 2" of heavy, sticky snow. When I jumped into the classic tracks to avoid having to pole on the descents, I found them to be very undulating, becoming uncomfortably bumpy at higher speeds. I gave up after just one lap. Continuing would have produced a very good workout, but not enjoyable at all.

(Ron Refsnider)

Skied Elm around 9:45 am on man made snow loop. Valley was not groomed yet so around 1 inch of snow on the track, skiable but slow and more effort. Classic would have been easier.

Photos:

(Bernard Cerles)