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.

Photos:

(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)

The manmade snow was great as always and back to fast conditions after slowing down after the last snow. I skated and hopped in the tracks sometimes to double pole. After hard wax over the weekend it would be back to klister or no-wax skis again. They had blocked off the trails to the Lake and Creek as they hadn't groomed them yet and I'd guess they were quite icy. There was a large group of school kids out there particularly around the chalet area although I think they ventured out to the Northern Lights as some were talking about the Elevator Shaft (Cowabunga downhill). Hope they made it.

(Mark Lahtinen)

Skied only Valley man made snow loop around 9:30 am. With the rain the day before, the snow has harden making it much faster without being icy thanks to excellent grooming. All was very enjoyable.

Photos:

(Bernard Cerles)

I classic skied the Lake and North Loop trails. Lake was well groomed and snow was mostly firm without being icy making for really pleasant skiing. North Loop didn't seem to have been groomed today. It was missing classic tracks in some spots and the skate deck had a lot of ski marks making some parts a little more challenging and the steep downhill was bumpier than usual but overall still enjoyable.

(Lexie Thorpe)