1.27.13

Summer Home Road Ski Trail this morning:

1.26.13 A great weekend to come out and ski

Conditions are outstanding on the trails.  What a great weekend to come skiing!  Warm up by the fire in our Main Lodge, and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate, or a bowl of chili or chicken wild rice soup. Wine, beer, pop, and snacks are available  in the Main Lodge.

Ski passes for the Central Gunflint Trail System are available at both Bearskin and Golden Eagle. Our parking lots may be somewhat busy today, so if you decide to park anywhere besides our lodge parking lots, be sure to ask for a parking pass for your car. Groomers will be out on the trails today checking for ski passes.

Here’s Golden Eagle’s grooming report from Friday afternoon, after the grooming on both sides of the system was completed:

New Snow Last 24 hours: 2.4 inches

New Snow Last 7 days: 6.35 inches

Trail Base: Average 6 to 8 inches

Snow in Woods: Average 14 inches

Groomed with classic tracks: 65K

Groomed for skating: 70K

Surface Conditions: Powder, Packed Powder

Snowshoe trails: Open

Total snowfall since November 1: 34.23

 Conditions: Good to Excellent

Comments: Both groomers have been out since this morning and the whole system will be groomed today. The trails are in great mid-winter shape.

Please check with Golden Eagle Lodge or Bearskin Lodge for specific conditions and information on each trail. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.25.13 More new snow, newly groomed, great conditions

 

It’s been a frigid week, but the weather forecast now looks very promising. Trails were groomed during and after the snowstorm last weekend. We did a little touch-up grooming in spots during this week, but with 5 days of subzero highs, there wasn’t much activity anywhere on the trail system.

 

Thursday night we received about 4 more inches of new snow. The snow has stopped now, and groomers are out on the trails this morning. Conditions for the weekend should be excellent.

 We’ll have soup, chili, hot chocolate, and wine and beer available in the lodge all weekend. There’s still a little room to join Scott Bergstrom for Saturday night dining. He’s offering a very interesting, different menu for the next two weeks. Ski for the day, and dine with us on Saturday night.

1.20.13 Better day than we expected

Maybe a -15F start to the day, with a predicted high of -5F, isn’t your idea of a “better than expected” weather day, but  today is much more pleasant than we thought it would be.  The crazy winds have calmed down quite a bit.  The snow is still coating the trees and when the sun pops out from behind the clouds later this morning, the world is going to be beautiful.  We even had an incredibly vivid sunrise this morning.

The groomers are out on the trails.  If you plan to ski, dress for more extreme cold and perhaps plan to get inside often.  We’ll have a fire crackling in the fireplace and hot soup ready to serve.  Sunday is the best day to buy soup at Bearskin because Chef Scott Bergstrom always makes us a fabulous soup to serve on Saturday night, and we usually have some to sell on Sunday.  Today the soup is Italian Sausage, Wild Rice and Tomato Soup — a little spicy, perfect for warming up after a cold ski.

We also have hot chocolate with maple cookies, wine by the glass or the bottle, and an array of interesting beers available in the lodge.  Warm up with us.

1.19.13 It just kept snowing all day

Everything was groomed today, even though it never quit snowing.  Most likely we will need to groom again tomorrow, but realistically, what actually happens could depend on what the night brings.  Forecasts are threatening  low temperatures and very high winds, followed by even lower temperatures and even higher winds.  We’ll see what weather actually materializes, but grooming may or may not be rational in the morning. 

Check the weather before you decide to come skiing tomorrow or especially Monday.  These will not be days to go out into the winter weather unaware of current conditions.

A good book by the crackling fire sounds like an excellent plan.

 

1.19.13 Lots of new snow, groomers are out

Oh yes, we got a lot of snow.  It’s still snowing.

They’ve been out grooming on both sides of the trail system since 5 AM.  Grooming while it is snowing is not ideal, but it is the only option today. You are going to find snow in the tracks of freshly groomed trails.  In fact, when Bob finished grooming Bear Cub early this morning, when he crossed back over what he had done first, it no longer looked newly groomed.  They’ll groom everything today, but you should expect to see fresh snow even on newly groomed trails.  That’s just the way it is going to be today.

New report from Golden Eagle:

New Snow Last 24 hours: 4.65 inches

New Snow Last 7 days: 6.88 inches

Trail Base: Average 4 to 6 inches

Snow in Woods:  Average 12 inches

Surface Conditions: Powder, Packed Powder

Snowshoe trails:  Open

Total snowfall since November 1:  29.63

Conditions:  Good to Excellent

Comments:  Lots of great snow this week!  Both Groomers are out on the system this morning!  Please check with Golden Eagle Lodge or Bearskin Lodge for specific conditions and information on each trail.

 

1.18.13 Snow!

It’s been snowing hard all day. Yes!

Bob went out and did some “courtesy grooming” as he calls it, grooming  midway through a snowfall to keep a few trails good for the skiers who are out there today.  But our forecast for continuing snow means extensive trail grooming will need to wait until the snowfall has ended, or at least slowed down a bit.

This might be the snowfall we needed to bring the trails out of the “pretty good” category and into the “now this how winter should be” category.

1.17.13 Ski trails continue to improve

We’re still wishing  for a giant snowstorm, but meanwhile the little snow flurries we get regularly are adding up. The snow Tuesday night and Wednesday morning left the ski trails in pretty good shape again.  Do we wish we had more snow?  Oh, yes.  Do we have enough to ski?  Oh, yes.  People are pretty happy skiing out there.  It’s not the level of snow that Bearskin is famed for, but ski conditions are still better than they are in most of Minnesota.

Lake skiing is also an option now. Yesterday we were hearing reports from skiers who tried skiing on several lakes in the area, but encountered slush or windblown glare ice.  Then they tried skiing here on East Bearskin, and had great success.  We only see our own lake on a daily basis, so we didn’t realize the surfaces of so many other lakes had gone bad.  East Bearskin is still quite skiable.

As usual, don’t let reports of bad or no snow in Grand Marais and on the North Shore cast doubts on a decision to come up here to ski.  As you drive up the Gunflint Trail, you will see the snow conditions change and improve. We’re in our own weather world up here, so our conditions often don’t match those down by Lake Superior.

We’ll have soup and chili available in the Main Lodge all weekend, as well as hot chocolate, wine, beer, and sodas.  We still have dining spots available this weekend with Chef Scott  Bergstrom.  It’s fine dining, but you don’t need to dress up for dinner.  You are welcome to join us for an elegant meal after a day of good skiing.

Here are the latest snow and trail stats from Baumann’s at Golden Eagle:

New Snow Last 24 hours: 1.25 inches

New Snow Last 7 days: 2.23 inches

Trail Base: 3.5 to 4 inches average

Snow in Woods: Average 7 inches

Surface Conditions: Packed Powder, hard pack base

Snowshoe trails: Open

Total snowfall since November 1: 24.98 inches

Conditions: Fair to Excellent

 Comments: The snow last night was very helpful and we feel we are almost back to where we were before the rain. Most of the system was re-groomed today and fresh tracks were set. Summer Home Road, Campground Loop, Ox Cart, and Deer Mouse are in excellent shape; Red Pines, Cross Fox, Moose Ridge, North Shore of Logging Camp, Wolf Point, Bear Cub, Lower Beaver Dam, and Moose Pasture vary from good to very good.Please check with Golden Eagle Lodge or Bearskin Lodge for specific conditions and information on each trail.

1.14.13 Current trail conditions

Good summary of current trail conditions from Dan at Golden Eagle:

New Snow Last 24 hours: .625 inches

New Snow Last 7 days: 1.125 inches

Trail Base: 3.5 to 4 inches

Snow in Woods: Average 6 inches, 8 inches high

Surface Conditions: Hard Pack

Snowshoe trails: Open

Total snowfall since November 1: 23.38 inches

 Conditions: Fair to Good

Comments: Despite the recent rain, the ski trails have held up quite well. With the recent new snowfall from yesterday, both Bearskin and Golden Eagle have been able to get out on the trails with snowmobiles and pack it in. The rain did NOT have an ice-rink effect on the trails and skiers should not have a problem with slipping on freestyle or classic skies. The classic tracks that were set prior to the rain are, for the most part, still present and very solid; the skate lanes also seemed to have held up well. Some things to watch out for include areas of low snow/base in a few select sections of ski trails and newly exposed rocks.

 The trails that have been freshly packed so far include the Logging Camp (Good), Cross Fox (Fair to Good), Red Pines (Good), Moose Ridge (Fair to Good), Summer Home Road (Good), and Campground Loop (Good). Please check with Golden Eagle Lodge or Bearskin Lodge for specific conditions and information on each trail.

1.13.13

Two days of odd moisture and warm weather, followed by a precipitous drop in the temperature, left us with hard, icy tracks on the ski trails and few options for repair.  Quinn went out with the groomer and did what he could this morning.  He reported that conditions were better than he expected.  Not ideal, but not nearly as bad as he thought they might be.  A sprinkling of new snow in the tracks has decreased the iciness today. The skiers who went out today generally reported that conditions were OK ,and that the snow in the tracks was really helping.

Conditions are better for skate skiers.   “Still hard pack, but edge able with some concentration”  one skier reported online. A few crust skiers have been out on East Bearskin Lake,also.

We still have some of the best snow in the area, but these are not “dream-come-true” winter ski conditions. We  need a blockbuster winter storm to come through! It’s hard to imagine that here on the excessively snowy Gunflint Trail we’re wishing for more snowstorms, but it’s yet another example of the weird weather pattern we are experiencing  across the country these days. 

At the moment, it’s snowing quite nicely here.  Let’s hope that this continues.