Roller Coaster is closed with snow guns in place and piles of snow ready to be groomed out. Stadium is ungroomed. Hopefully all back fully open by Saturday morning. The higher up loops (Black Bear and Overlook?) were great skiing. Violet Klister worked wonderfully.

Photos:

(Brian Markes)

Pristine, albeit cold, conditions at GANC this morning. They are blowing more snow now in the Stadium and on RollerCoaster- the latter was closed. The rest is open and wonderful. Thanks Spirit for giving us consistently great conditions in this decidedly un-winter winter.

(Tom Heinitz)

Spirit Mountain Nordic Center will be hosting the CCSA (Central Collegiate Ski Association) Conference meet on Saturday, February 10th and Sunday, February 11th. On Saturday, February 10th the Nordic Center trails will also be hosting the Duluth Area JH and JV Season Ender. The ski trails will be closed until the completion of races each day. Saturday, February 10th opening time will be 2:30PM and no classic tracks will be set. Sunday, February 11th opening time will be 1PM and classic tracks will be set best line. Trails are in good condition.

(Siiri Morse)

Mashed potatoes on top, ice underneath. Uphill sections are soft; downhills are fast and very icy in the corners where the trail has been scraped clean.

(Quentin Tschofen)

Skied lower Spirit this morning. Excellent fresh grooming. More loops added up top. Basically, amazing.

(Todd Struckman)

I had a fast and enjoyable ski tonight. There were some classic tracks (that looked good). The skate deck was firm and fast. I had no trouble on the downhill turns (no ice). The snow machines were blowing on the upper sections. Hopefully we can ski the full loop soon! Right now, it's about 1.3k long.

(Elaine Nelson)

I just got off the phone with Tom Straka, the Spirit Mt Trail Maintenance Manager. Tom wanted skiers to know that they had a very successful period of snowmaking over the past two days. They made so much snow in fact that they need a little more time on Tuesday morning to finish pushing everything around and grooming. Tom suggests delaying your arrival at Spirit Mt Nordic until after 10am on Tuesday. A little back story here... one of the compromises that was made with neighbors agreeing to the building of the trails was the creation of a noise ordnance that restricts night time grooming. The Spirit Mt crew would love to groom the Nordic trails in the overnight hours but they are restricted by the ordinance.

(Dave Johnson)

On Thursday, Jan 11 about 400 high school skiers will be racing in the Marshall Sprints at Spirit Mt. The sprints this year will be classic so the groomer will be laying down four classic tracks early Thursday morning to have them set up for the race. There will not be room for a skate lane in the stadium or on the sprint course. Skiers are asked to wait until after the race on Thursday to do any skating at Spirit. Thanks so much, from your Marshall Sprints Race Director, Dave Johnson.

(Dave Johnson)

Here is a message from Tom Straka of Spirit Mt Operations: We will be closing all operations for Monday (Jan 8) to blow snow. We are going to load up all of Nordic that has been getting skied on to build back up the base. We've got great temps forecasted for Sunday night so we're going to make a big push at it so we can be done with that section.

(Dave Johnson)

Pleasantly surprised with the good conditions at Spirit this morning. Grateful for the crew out there grooming some additional sections. Overall about 1 km open. Plenty of folks out there doing laps but didn't feel crowded at all. Coverage was good and really no icy spots to speak of. If you have a quiver of skis I'd recommend B skis but if you've got a single pair I would feel comfortable using them without significant risk of damage. I mostly skated, which was freshly groomed and pretty fast. A lap on classic skis to end the morning. There's track set on the lower segment of the loop but not the whole course. The track that was there was firm and in good shape, holding up on the main downhill corner at the very bottom.

(Gabi Hester)