Trails in great condition. I was just a few hours late as the snow started to soften and a little sticky. Otherwise a great workout on the black trails. Lots of climbing. Thanks to groomer. First time skiing Woodland, I'll be back.

Photos:

(Matt Bergstrom)

Babe and The Natural just finished their evening grooming run with the Godzilla Screens. Babe reported that the trails will be in great shape again for your Monday ski. Woodlands was hopping today with many happy skiers and hikers (on the winter walking trail). We would like to thank all of our ski friends, both old and those who came out for the first time, to join us for a great ski on a beautiful day. You are the reason we do what we do. No grooming is currently planned during the week. We will see what next weekend brings? Enjoy it while we have it.

(Dave Anderson, Elk River Nordic Ski Club)

Get out to Woodland Trails while we still have winter! All of the trails are in amazing condition for skating. The trails look and ski like it's early February. The deck is firm with a wisp of silky feeling loose snow on top. Lots of leaves down from all the wind, but only a small twig here and there, and not at all an issue for skating; use your best/race skis and have a blast. I didn't notice any classic tracks until reaching the Wash Pond Flats and after that the tracks were intermittent until the return to the parking lot, depending on what route you take. The tracks did appear deep and firm, like they could last awhile, but there are a lot of leaves in them. The course here is so much fun and the grooming is so consistently superb that driving 45 min from Minneapolis is way more than worth it. Thank you Dave Anderson and crew for all you do! You make Winter feel way too short! Putting in a plug for people who may not know it's there (I didn't my first several skis here): You can donate money to the trail maintenance and grooming, so make an ATM stop on your way!

(Amy Swan)

All the trails were in great shape, very good skating conditions. Lots of leaves on the trail, but it wasn't a problem for skating. There are classic tracks on the easy trails, lots of leaves in those. Thank you groomers.

(Joe Gerard)

Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies! It is not very often you can have great fresh snow trail conditions in the middle of March. I made the screening run this evening with Mr. Fixit (formerly Buckthorn Bob), finishing just as the sun was setting (as it will be on our ski season soon as well). We made an extra pass around Stony Rollers to bust up the drifts. The trails will be in excellent shape for your Sunday ski with the only slight detraction being the leaf litter scattered about, especially in some of the tracks. Enjoy!

(Dave Anderson, Elk River Nordic Ski Club)

Trails in great shape, observed a very nice solid set of tracks laid Friday night and lightly used Saturday. Friday night's grooming team made the invasive ATV tracks nearly all disappear as well! Thank you!

(Kyle Henning)

Likely, just in the nick of time, the Engineer got tracks set for us late Friday evening. He reported that the tracks looked just fine. Enjoy!

(Dave Anderson, Elk River Nordic Ski Club)

Back by popular demand (begged actually) this evening was the dynamic duo of DPR and Robin. They were pulling the light screens for our Saturday skiing pleasure. I checked the log in the grooming cave this morning - we first started grooming for the season 120 days ago, and we opened the trail 92 days ago. Mostly good skiing for nearly 1/4 of a year is not a bad run. Expect quite nice trail conditions for your Saturday skate. No word yet from the Engineer who is supposed to be out setting tracks. Enjoy!

(Dave Anderson, Elk River Nordic Ski Club)

Conditions = cold! That wind had a bite! Thank you to the dedicated grooming team that braved it this morning - and are already back out there this evening! Hope those sleds have hand warmers! Snow itself was great - soft grooved layer on top. Really nice skate track. No tracks were down as of 5pm. Down with ATV's on ski trails, disappointing to see such damage. Left some grooves through a lot of the "green" trails and the poplar ridge making skating a little extra challenging. Further out trails east of the paved bike trail unaffected.

(Kyle Henning)

Minnow and I (Ancient One overslept again) were out with the rollers in the darkness this morning to roll our few new inches of snow. With the exception of a couple of places that the wind blew all of the snow off the trail (icy) and some very interesting drifts mostly on Stony Rollers, there should be some darned good skiing to be had this weekend. We had another ATV on the loose last evening (before the trail froze this time) on the GNT and all of the trails on the West side. Luckily most of the outer loop escaped intact. Take care on affected trail sections as the ruts will be a bother. No tracks set. Enjoy otherwise!

(Dave Anderson, Elk River Nordic Ski Club)