Trails on the man-made snow loop is groomed and great for fast skiing and corduroy. I skied for almost 2 hours and maintained a 4 min/km pace. Great for Birkie training.

Photos:

(Randy Hochstein)

Classic skied several of the Elm Creek trails this afternoon. Some were groomed and some were not. Valley Trail - Tracks very good (OK for good skis). Northern Lights Trail - Tracks OK (OK for good skis). Lake and Creek Trails - The piston bully worked up the skate deck a little but did not set new tracks. 15% icy Eagle and Monarch Trails - No new grooming. Just the old tracks that were rained on and are now very icy. All icy.

(Mark Skinner)

I only skied the Valley (manmade) trail as I was classic skiing and I can't imagine there being any tracks out on the Dark Side. Faster than blazes in the track... might've been faster than the skate lane. Good, hard corduroy in the skate lane. Could've used some more klister (I had on some Rex Gold that had worked the last 2 times I was out) and it was working OK but I mainly did double-poling and single kick double-pole.

(Mark Lahtinen)

Very very icy! I classic skied the Valley trail twice. Almost solid ice. Nice deep solid tracks set. Almost no one else out skiing. Hard to get a solid pole plant due to the icy conditions. I did not dare venture out on the Lake Trail. Looked icy.

(Mark Skinner)

Yesterday's 40°F and rain turned into today's 22°F, high wind, and blue sky, which produced ice! Plenty of ice! The new skin skis did surprisingly well, though. Skied all of the snowmaking trails, which were beautifully groomed (deep, sharply defined tracks and corduroy) but mostly frozen hard. Skied most of the natural snow trails, which had shallower tracks and no corduroy, except for Northern Lights, which had some softer fresh corduroy but no tracks. Just as I was finishing, the groomers were taking a pass with some snowmobile groomers to scratch up the frozen corduroy a bit.

Photos:

(Craig Wiklund, North Star Ski Touring Club)

As of late morning, it had warmed above freezing, so the freshly-groomed skate deck on the Valley trail was mostly soft and well-traversed as there were a good number of skiers out. Definitely still enjoyable - kind of a pick-your-own-adventure, with faster skiing in the middle hard-packed sections and slower, softer skiing on the sides. The Northern Lights trail had just been groomed and was in mostly good condition, with alternating portions of nice soft snow and hard-packed icy sections with tiny ripples of corduroy.

(Jason Goepfert)

Skied the man-made snow loop for a bit before checking out Northern Lights Loop. Man-made was very fast in the morning while it was below freezing, stayed fast into the morning while the sun was on it. Northern Lights was rough, not freshly groomed, ice rutted or skating rink in spots from all the freeze/thaw.

(Harry Rothberg)

Fast fast fast! It was a beautiful warm skiing afternoon at Elm Creek. With Mora Vasaloppet events coming up, we took out our warm classic skis for a couple of quick loops on the "man-made" snow trails and Northern Light natural snow trails! The classic tracks are very nicely groomed! Thanks! Best luck to all the racers at Mora Vasaloppet, Pre-Birkie, and North End!

(Amy Xu)

I skied the snowmaking loop. Great grooming, firm skate deck that transformed from a bit icy and tough to balance to the right amount of firm but chopped up once the ski teams got a few laps in. The natural snow trails look like they haven't been groomed for a few days. They were too rock hard for my to have any fun on so I returned to the snowmaking loop after about a half k.

(Paul Lozom)

I skated the Valley and Northern Lights trails this morning from 8:30-9:30. Valley was in fine condition for skating, but I found N. Lights to be even better. The groomers had sufficiently scratched the firm base on N. Lights so that one could get a reliable edge but had not overgroomed it to the point of being soft. It was the Goldilocks surface for my intermediate skating abilities. However, the classic tracks had not been regroomed and looked pretty icy. From the swimming beach end of N. Lights, I could see that the end of the Lake trail had not been groomed since yesterday's melt, and it was hardpacked and ski-rutted.

(Ron Refsnider)