Man-made snow trails were quick and well maintained. Natural trails were 95% good cover with some ground/leaves/rock visible.

(Eric Andersen)

We skied Valley, Lake, Eagle, Creek, Northern Lights. All were in very good to excellent condition for classic with good set tracks. A few small areas with more leaves, but mostly very clean. More snow than we expected on the natural snow trails. No bare or icy spots. No rocks.

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(Craig Wiklund, North Star Ski Touring Club)

Skied the Eagle trail (classic), very good condition and coverage. The track was good but with some corners skied out by the time I got there (lunch hour), but very doable and enjoyable.

(Karen Peters)

I skated Valley and classic skied Northern Lights. Valley deck and tracks were in good shape, though some areas were collecting a fair amount of debris (leaves and sticks). NL deck looked okay, classic tracks were hit-or-miss and seemed a little soft. I also noted my pole tips often hit very solid, so it'd be nice if Mother Nature would bring us a little more snow!

(Brad Johnson)

I guess if you want to avoid the crowds at Elm Creek you just need to wait for double digits below zero weather. It was -11F when I left the parking lot this morning. I didn't see one skier until I'd done all the classic tracked trails. All the natural snow trails are groomed and have classic tracks. All skating lanes were regroomed since yesterday, but only the snow-making trails and Northern Lights have regroomed classic tracks. The "Dark Side" trails are soft and slow, but it's wonderful to finally have tracks to ski on there. Northern Lights and the snow-making trails had wonderful, hard-set tracks, with surprisingly good glide. I got a lot of satisfaction from striding up the tracks on the Wall with my green kick wax. Excellent ski conditions - If you want solitude at Elm Creek, now's the time to go there.

(Ken Tobacman)

My dad and I did the man-made loop and Northern lights. We got to the trails about 5pm as races were finishing. The cut out to avoid the wall had snow that had drifted in so the skate skiing was more difficult. There were spots where I could see that snow had drifted into the tracks. They had classic tracks set on Northern lights. The snow was slightly slow and sticky but it was nice to have snow vs the ice that we were skiing on earlier in the season. The fastest section of the course was from the chalet to ski school.

Photos:

(Elizabeth Loper)

We skied the snowmaking loop, which was excellent as always, and Northern Lights, which was excellent with the new snow. These trails had good set tracks for classic. They looked a little loose and soft for skating, due to the fresh snow.

(Craig Wiklund, North Star Ski Touring Club)

The snowmaking portion of the perimeter trail is in very good condition. The remainder - Creek and Lake - that's groomed and open was in good to fair condition - minimal seed, leaf and twig litter. The skate portion of Creek up on the ridge has visible roots but only one exposed above the snow. Steeper uphills and and downhills are all well covered. The more gradual climbs to the top of Lake and Creek where the underlying ground is rutted has some snert. It was high 20's at my 11:00 start. I used my rock skis waxed with Swix Blue LF buffed with fluoro paste. B skis would have been fine. Tried to beat the warmup and avoid the need to rewax my skis. I may have missed that window but still moved okay. Trailhead lot was only half full. I only met one other skier coming the other way once I got off the snowmaking loop and then one other when I got back on to Northern LIghts which had virgin corduroy.

(Keith Carlson)

I started at the Bottineau House (which is my recommendation for parking as the chalet parking lot was full with terrain park users). The snow was a little sugary or grainy but I found it quite fast. The downhills were slick or smooth and slightly icy. The cut out to go around the wall is now open. I did the whole man-made loop and Northern lights. All the snow was about the same condition. The snow base of NL is solid and there is only one spot where there were leaves on the trail, but they are little leaves and easy to ski around. There were at least three teams out at 3:30pm when I got there which made it busy.

Photos:

(Elizabeth Loper)

Skied the artificial snow trails and Northern Lights. Both were in better shape than when I skied them a few days ago; I'd say good condition for Northern Lights and excellent condition for the artificial snow. The artificial snow was very fast, and the natural snow was faster than I thought it might be. Northern Lights was in better shape overall than a few days ago; some of the thinner spots seemed to have better coverage and some of the debris was cleaned out or covered over. Probably best to use B skis still on the natural snow but better skis would have probably been fine when I was out.

(Kristian Markon)