A perfect day on the trails - the proverbial winter wonderland! With no wind and plenty of sunshine, the dry cold was not a major factor. Smooth and fast tracks on the fresh snow, fast and fun with my classic wooden skis. I did Twin Lakes, Island Lake, and Wavy Gravy in the morning, then North Loop and Roy's Run (my favorite) in the afternoon + Sukkerbusk and Mother North Star in the middle, total of 35K. Can't wait to be back before very long!

(Istvan Gombocz)

Fantastic day of skiing after grooming on entire 70km trail system the past few days including the fat bike trail. Morning lows have been -30 but with no wind, brilliant sunshine and temp near 0 by noon making for best classical skiing conditions of the year. Went out for a early lunch ski with Jake and found the best skiing on Roy's Run and North Loup than I can remember in recent years. If you ski Roy's Run, be sure to look for the wolf tracks on the adjacent pond on the far north end. Touch up grooming on a few inner classic trails and skate trails planned in the morning.

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(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

3" of new snow. No issues with warm weather earlier in the week. The base is seasoned and firm. 10-18" of snow depth.
Groomed all day, working in the new snow but didn't do final due to wind blowing. Once the temp warms up to -20 air temp, will be back out doing final touch up on entire trail system. Note: North Loup will remained double track through the MLK weekend. Skating on Skaters Waltz, the two extension loops across the road, Suicide Hill and Single Green which is the long hill used in Section course. All other trails will be single or double tracked.
10km Twin Lakes Singletrack Fat Bike loop scheduled for grooming Friday afternoon/early evening. For best conditions, ride Saturday.

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(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Left the snow-starved West Central Minnesota region this morning with Kayo Aslagson and drove the 2+ hrs to Maplelag. Well worth the drive! Skating was excellent; firm, fast trails and a beautiful day. These were near perfect conditions - the "near" referring solely to my lack of fitness, otherwise it would have been absolutely perfect!

(Keith Brugger)

Trails have been holding up well to high volume of skier traffic and warmer temps making for nice skiing. We will be hosting the DL Invite race on Tuesday January 9th. Varsity classic will be using the second half of Rootin Tootin trail for the start, the full regular loop of North Loup and than returning on the east side of Sukkerbusk. These trails closed during the races from 10am-1230pm. JV and JR High will be a skate race on Skaters Waltz. These trails will be closed from 12pm-2pm. All other trails open for skiing all day. We will be grooming on the courses today and ask skiers stay off the fresh groomed until the afternoon. North Loup will be double tracked from today, eliminating the skate lane, until next grooming planned on Thursday than will be groomed for skate and classic again.

(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

My wife and I classic skied on Sukkerbusk and Twin Lakes this afternoon. Like usual the trails were groomed to perfection. The snow was skiing cold, so blue wax worked well. My wife was using skin skis for the first time and also had excellent kick and glide. With little wind and temps in the upper 20s it doesn't get much better than today.

(Tom Dooher)

Awesome skiing at maplelag. I've never been there before and if you haven't, you need to. Reminds me a lot of skiing in Hayward as a kid. Compliments to the trail crew. Trails were in excellent condition.

(Mark Voigtschild)

Very good to excellent ski conditions. 45km of recent grooming the past two days including new track set on 30km and skate trails lightly renovated and combed on 15km. Total trail open around 65km which includes 8km of trail with skier made track.

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(Jay Richards, Maplelag Resort)

Considerably more snow here than in Twin Cities, only a few patches where you might have to steer around or step over a rougher spot. Given temps, snow gave zero glide for skating. Classic was much more enjoyable.

(Chris McLaren)

A beautiful, slow ski in a positively balmy -8F. Excellent coverage on the trails; tracks in great shape. Most skiers stuck to the inner ring of trails due to the cold so when it warms up I suspect the outer trails will be fabulous.

(Ralph Schwartz)