Awesome skiing at Upper Spirit today. Classic track excellent. Skate even better. Skate deck firm and corduroy was narrow for nordic skiing. (At lower spirit often the corduroy is the wider style used for downhill skiing) When upper spirit has enough snow and is groomed, it is my favorite trail in the Duluth area. If flows beautifully and reminds me of the old Korte trail (Cable to Cable circuit).

(Bruce Busta)

I was a little disappointed in conditions here. I think perhaps classic would have been a better choice since the tracks looked decent once you got away from the parking area. The skate lanes hadn't been groomed and were pretty icy and rutted. There seemed to be enough new snow to justify grooming, especially for a beautiful January Saturday.

(Kristen Schmitt)

We had incredibly fast conditions with the 1-inch icy snow layer on top. Downhills brought tears to my eyes. Thankfully, the groomer was grooming behind us, so hopefully the corduroy will be slower and more manageable. Some dirt on the trails, so I'd recommend B skis. Thanks to the groomers for their dedication. I love skiing upper Spirit and Magney!

(Elaine Nelson)

-6C. I skied the campground loop, the 5km twice and the last 1.6km of the 10km (no glide zone loop). The class tracks and skate deck were both fine, but there are spots with very thin coverage. Grooming might dig up yuckies right now. Fingers crossed we get more snow soon.

(Louise Levy)

A phenomenal ski with good friends yesterday at Upper Spirit. We were smart in using B skis as there were a few patches of dirt around the 10k (especially down McDonald's hill). A few rocks around the campground loop. The Spirit connector was fantastically groomed (depicted) where we skied the upper 400 m, but Magney connector has not been touched for quite some time and looked drifty and near impossible for skate. Thanks to Spirit grooming--it has been so good this year!

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(Jena Ogston)

All of Upper Spirit got groomed after the most recent light snows - this commitment from Spirit on keeping up grooming the upper trails is definitely putting down an awesome base! I last skied here about 1.5 weeks ago before the warm up and coverage is probably about 5-10% better now compared to then. There are still occasional dirty spots on the trail but its mostly avoidable sticks/leaves/grass and it was more in the classic track than on the skate deck. I did intervals on the 3k loop and felt like I could stay in the track over all the dirty spots with B skis and not incur any additional damage, there were just a couple grassy spots that caught my kick zone. Where a classic track is set, it is largely full depth and firm, but its seems that the track was somewhat randomly picked up around the trail system without a clear pattern of why in most spots so you do go from having a full depth track to having none. The most concerning loop conditions-wise was actually the campground loop, which initially appears to be in the best condition, but on the corners back in the woods the grooming keeps pulling up large gravel chunks from the campground road, and those will take a chunk of ptex out of your skis if you're not careful (ask me how I know). Its largely avoidable if you keep an eye out. These trails continue to be such a fun ski when they are groomed!

(Ketzel Levens)

I just did a short recon this afternoon. From what I saw, I'd say 99% of upper spirit looked really quite good, with fresh tracks and corduroy. But there were some small patches with gravel mixed in, hence the B skis. Hopefully you can see those spots in time!

(Will Daniels)

Skied the inner loop, snow was starting to accumulate over an icy base. Two sets of footprints down the middle of the trail. Not much debris in the tracks. Trail was bare in spots.

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(Rachelle Walker)

Very icy after yesterday's temp rise. Lots of dirt patches and fallen trees. Skied 2k and called it a day after multiple scary moments.

(Charles Juntunen)

Icy conditions after yesterday's thaw. A lot of dirty patches of trail. Also a ton of sticks and a couple of downed trees from the wind last night. Still very skiable in my opinion, especially back on the bigger loops.

(Peter Spethmann)