Conditions: Manmade loop was firm this morning at 9:00 and very nice for skating. Northern Lights was in surprisingly good shape from the couple inches the other day and the groomer was careful not to pull up junk.
Scoped the Northern Lights trail to see if it could be used for Saturday's Baker Shaker race being held at Elm Creek. Spent a couple hours shoveling the first climb on Northern Lights and a few other places. If it doesn't get as hot as they are forecasting tomorrow it would be a go to make a 5 km loop, but with the forecasted 41 tomorrow I'm afraid it'll deteriorate fast. Will scope Northern Lights tomorrow late afternoon to see how it's holding up but probably won't be able to include it in the race I'm afraid as we don't want to put racers on bad conditions. Fortunately they have the 2.5 km manmade loop.

(Clayton Keim)

Conditions: Multi-Use trail not too bad for an inch of base, groomed, no pavement showing anywhere. 25F, overcast.
Skijored the multi-use trail around noon, coverage was good, a well compacted inch or two of new snow. The snow itself was weird, very slow near the surface, then suddenly very fast as my skis went deeper toward the thin ice layer underneath. Avoiding long glides and setting the skis hard seemed to work best, the dogs seemed confused by the uneven load I presented before I understood what the snow was doing. Nice fast loop, a pair of walkers out, no one else. I had fast wax red left on from a few days ago, definitely too soft.

(Steve Evans)

Excellent conditions on the man made loop after sunset. The trail had a nice thin coating of churned up snow on top. This was added to by a decent snow squall which slowed things down a tad. The uphills were ever so slightly mushy. In general, a great ski as usual.

(Ben Mullin)

Conditions: Classic skiied the valley trail at 9:30 a.m. this morning. Not icy, soft and fairly fast using waxless skis. The natural snow trails appeared to have enough coverage and some people were skiing on them.
Quite a few skiers were out for a weekday morning. Had a fun ski. I was hiking the trails north of Eastman N.C. yesterday afternoon and the multi use trails appeared skiable even in open areas.

(Mark Basiletti)

Conditions: Mixed bag of good, OK and ugly.
Skied the snowmaking loop and then the whole outer loop around midday. Tons of folks at Elm Creek Winter Rec area for MLK day, the tubing hill reminded me of the Mall of America during the holidays. Snowmaking loop was fast and fun. Outer loop was "interesting". Bridge heading out was down to a narrow strip of snow/ice that you could still double-pole across. Much of the rest of the loop was B ski quality, with scattered thin and dirty spots. But the section coming back by the swimming area was rock ski city -- short bridge was pretty much bare, and exposed dirt and rocks along there. Northern Lights loop was pretty good still - could use good skis from overflow parking lot to get over to the snowmaking loop.

(Bruce Adelsman)

Snowmaking loop: Fantastic, flat, fast as the sun went down. The trails were firm, but with plenty of edge available except for one or two spots that were starting to get icy.

(Ben Mullin)

Conditions: Valley Trail - Great, Northern Lights - OK, Outer Loop - Fair.
Skied at Elm in the evening. The outer loop bumpy and uneven with so little snow. Uneven footing with a slippery hard deck made it tough to ski in the dark. Good coverage, only a few places to look out for. The Nothern Lights is 100% covered as far as I could tell, but a little uneven and slippery since it's only been rolled. Valley Trail is hard packed -- unchanged.

(Adrian Swanson)

Conditions: Valley and Northern Lights were in very good condition. Creek was fair to good. 11 degrees with a light overcast. I used Blue Fastwax LW buffed with fluoro paste.
Only met two others on Creek even though the parking lot at the trailhead was packed. There were a few bare spots easily avoidable except the exit from the bridge by the swimming beach. Better conditions than Lake Elmo that I skied yesterday. Unfortunately I was at the bottom end of my wax's range and I think that slowed me from my pace at Lake Elmo despite the fluoro I buffed onto my skis.

(Keith Carlson)

Conditions: The Valley Loop was very good with a firm deck with enought loose snow to get a good edge. The Classic tracks looked deep and firm as well. Outer loops much better than anticipated for skate. No tracks set.
Three of us went out for an afternoon skate ski at Elm Creek and for the first time since the meltdown we ventured out onto the outer loops. What a great surpirse it was to have nicely rolled and packed trails throughout the system with plenty of coverage. Those few places with dirt or sand showing through were easily avoided. It was worth the trip.

(Doug Schumacher)

Conditions: Good. Complete cover, groomed, 1-3 inches thick on Multi-Use.
Skijored the mulit-use trail this afternoon with the twins. Well they did, I drew chase duty. The trail was nice, hard packed, no pavement showing except a bit on the sides at the parking lot entrance and coverage was mostly good enough for decent pole plants. Good glide, about 15F, my Teal Fast Wax was about worn off, but seemed right. The kids flew with Boomer and LuLu, never saw them again when they launched after each pause for me to catch up. A few other skijorers, skaters and a runner out, nice sunny day, no wind. The trail was surprisingly good. We had fun, the kids can drive the dogs so well now.

(Steve Evans)