Perfection! Skied the freshly PB groomed Gold early this morning (unit was grooming back down into the stadium on adjacent trail as I headed up) before departing back to cities. Some 6-12" pole plants earlier in the week on the edges of various trails but not today.

(John WItzmann)

Once the Ridge got around to grooming they created a great product for us Nordic skiers. We skied both techniques today on parts of cedar, gold, summit, and bronze. Full depth classic tracks with occasional soft pole plants. Firm skate deck with occasional soft poke plant. Virtually no debris considering the recent storms. Likely the best trails around, currently.

Photos:

(Tony Norland)

Skied the Silver loop to Laurentian to Summit to Bronze. All trails had been groomed in the last two days, but snow drifts covered up all the corduroy. Lots of debris on the trails, especially the Silver loop. (Long sections where pine straw and twigs are unavoidable). The skate deck is nice and firm, but obviously conditions were difficult with high winds and snow drifts.

(Nick Ongaro)

Trails are groomed, but the Silver has about an inch of powder on it. Slow snow, but so beautiful with the frosted trees!

(Karl Kubiak)

Great skiing! They brought the pistenbully out. Skate deck is a little soft but hopefully will firm up with dropping temps. Classic track were fast.

(Robin Raplinger)

Skied part of Cedar, Gold and Summit. All had great classic tracks (I classic ski) and a surprisingly firm skate deck (husband skated) considering the amount of wet snow that fell. Still a little slow.

Photos:

(Nikki Norland)

Skied the Summit (good, combed condition), Bronze (newly combed but radical undulation in parts and about a dozen rock heads showing) as well as Gold (good condition but ungroomed after new 1.5" snow Saturday). There is not a ton of snow at the inlaws just down the road from the Ridge but the trails were in surprisingly good, snow-covered condition. Although it was slow snow with the fresh cover, based on deer track impressions it appears a 2-4" base exists. I skied a B pair of skis one day and a warm good pair the next. No damage that I could feel.

(John Witzmann)

Tough out there today. I thought there would be more grooming. Silver trail would have been perfect but it had 1-2" of ungroomed snow. Good ski conditions on Silver. I had an unfortunate mishap coming up to the Silver trail along the fairway as I hit a bare spot over the cart path and scratched up my ski base pretty badly. Bronze was groomed but it needs to be evened out and the skate deck was very soft.

(Nick Ongaro)

Thrilled to have machine set tracks! Freshly set track and corduroy on the Cedar and the super Summit highway. The Gold had a recent skate deck regroom, while the track was still decently intact. Great grooming, a bright moon and trees wrapped in lights, was pure early ski season enjoyment!

Photos:

(Cheri Johnson)

Thanks to the Giants Ridge crew for the early season efforts! The 10km Silver trail was groomed today (skate only) and is in great shape for December. Currently around 25km of groomed skating (northern lights, silver, summit, Cedar and portions of gold) and around 15k tracked for classic (northern lights, summit, cedar). Bring your B skis and enjoy the warmer weather ahead.

Photos:

(Shawn Callahan)