Skied all of the lit trails last night, and saw only a couple people - I felt like I had the whole place to myself! Classic tracks are in great condition - they are washing out in a couple spots and there's a little bit of leaf debris in the most wooded areas, but 99% of the tracks are firm and fast. Found: I did find a car key on the "Hills" loop, on the climb right before the intersection of the "Hills" and the end of the "Brown's Pond" trail. Call the Lake Elmo Park Reserve main office if these belong to you.

(Nick Myhre)

Another excellent day of skiing at Lake Elmo! We arrived at 2:30 pm; beautiful sunny day and 10 degrees with light wind. Perfectly groomed trails made for lots of glide and plenty of whooping and hollering!! We ran into more deer out having fun than people. What a great season of skiing. And it is only January! Thank you groomers.

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(Woody Croatt)

Groomer went out early this morning and regroomed the skate deck on the east side. The tracks that were touched up on Saturday seem to be in tact and in good condition still. There is light debris from the trees on the trail, especially in the more wooded sections of Brown's and Hills but nothing overwhelming. Overall, things are still in good condition if you are up for braving the cold weather! :) Grooming plans: They will work on repacking the West side trails this afternoon.

(Jen Garcia, Washington County Parks)

We skijored the multiuse trail around Eagle Point Lake and found overall good conditions! There were a few spots in the prairie where double polling was the best choice - but very skiable for a multi use path! Also encountered a few boilerplate sections but not that significant and could still get an edge.

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(Sara Brokaw)

Excellent snow conditions and grooming! We skied most of the trails east of Keats Ave at least once. Tracks were deeply set and there was little leaf/bark/stick debris. We were using waxed skis but the wax was hard enough and the debris was infrequent enough that it wasn't a problem. Great to have such a nice Nordic Center to warm up and have our tea after skiing.

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(Craig Wiklund, North Star Ski Touring Club)

Skied Savanna, North and Prairie this afternoon in classic tracks. The tracks are in great shape with little leaf or tree debris! There was a little bit of leaves on the North trail along Lake Elmo, but no where the same amount of leaves as yesterday on Brown's Pond. Very enjoyable ski.

(Barbara Kuzmak)

The classic tracks were set so nice! However, Mother Nature filled up the tracks with oak leaves and debris (because of the wind). I was using grip wax based skis. I left after 1/2 hour. It just wasn't fun constantly having to step out of the tracks. As one of the other posts suggests, maybe fish scales would now be better.

(Bryan Heinle)

I read the report about the leaves and I thought "it'll still be better than having no track yesterday, this will be fun." I was quickly proven wrong. The leaves managed to fully take me out a couple times- my watch tried to call an ambulance- so maybe bring skate skis instead of waxable classic. Skate trail had some leaf litter but didn't look terrible. Open areas were getting pretty windblown. Guessing fishscales or skins might navigate the leaves more successfully.

(Amber Glawe)

At 9:30am it looked like the groomer had just gone by with perfect corduroy and set track. We only did the SE trails, Brown's Pond, Flats, Hills. With the wind some leaves and sticks are showing up. The photo shows the worst that we saw and only in a few places. Great skiing. Thank you groomers! Perfect timing for the deep freeze coming!

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(William Buell)

Ugh. Way too much oak leaf litter everywhere to be enjoyable, and the few areas without leaf clog are wind blown. Skied the entire East side and had to skate ski with classic skis to do anything resembling skiing due to the leaves littering the tracks.

(Andrea Northwood)