Bottom line: Wonderful spring skiing! All trails appear to be open. We skate skied the blue and green loops for about 1.5 hours from 31° - 43°F. Best conditions were on the blue loops. Trail not groomed but deck quite flat with only minor very shallow ruts or bumps from past skiers (and some hikers). Nary a hint of bare ground. No frozen ice or slush puddles; any debris on trail (leaves/twigs) was melted in enough to be no problem. On the colder weather side of the ski it was a little icy, but not bad and once it was warming up and hit the sweet spot between cold and too warm, it was really really nice. We didn't classic, but on the outer blue loop tracks were visible/shallow/widened. Inner green loops more beat up from walkers, skiers' ruts, but still fine.

Photos:

(Mary Lawler Shedd)

Skied from about 7:45 - 9:45 AM and came over from the Magney connector. Due to the temps dipping in to the 20s last night the connector and the second half of the 10K was in fantastic shape for crust skate skiing as it had been largely left alone by skiers during the heat of the warmer days. The beginning of the 5/10K was rough with foot, snowshoe, and deep ski gouges, so I cut the first section and jumped back on at O-Q and the did the longer perimeter trail back to the connector. That part had some old ski tracks, but not extensive enough to be a problem. As temperatures have already climbed, skiing anymore today in the same areas will be largely mashed potato death march rather than fast crust skiing, but if it gets even a bit lower temperature than expected tonight, there's a chance that tomorrow morning could be good in these same sections too. Crust skiing was even great off the trail, but there are few sections of this woods that are open enough to skate ski off the trail.

(Sara Zimmer)

New snow has fallen and the sled has been out! Both the campground and 3k have been groomed for skate, while the campground has classic tracks set as well.

(Reitler Hodgert)

Fantastic March skiing. All trails groomed and tracked. The connector to Magney is in great shape. Get out and enjoy before the next storm hits.

Photos:

(Siiri Morse)

Came to ski Spirit but found the trails are yet again ungroomed. Very disappointed to find this on the Tour Duluth event day.

(John Jereczek)

Skied the 11k (on the way to Magney). The trail looked like it had been very recently groomed. Unfortunately, was still a little soft. A skier in front of me had made a few gouges with their skis in the soft stuff (I tried to be careful, but had a few gouges of my own). Pole plants were occasionally soft as well. I suspect after firming up overnight, it would make for a super fun ski! The classic tracks were beautiful - should be fantastic for Friday/weekend. Enjoy!

(Elaine Nelson)

Both the campground and 3k loops have been freshly groomed and tracked! Conditions might be soft until trails have been able to set up fully.

(Reitler Hodgert)

3K and probably a good portion of 5K/10K were groomed in the early afternoon. I was planning to go out on the 10K but the start of it had not been groomed. So instead I went out on the groomed 3K and sure enough, two-way trails were groomed to get me to the Magney connector, and connector and Magney were also groomed. The start of the 10K had still not been groomed by the time I left at 3. Conditions great on groomed portions.

(Sara Zimmer)

Grooming plans: Beautiful new snow blankets our trails and it will take a day for us to get them ready. Look for the whole system plus the Magney connector to be ready to ski Friday afternoon. The Grand Avenue Nordic Center trails are groomed to perfection today! Enjoy the snow and sun.

(Siiri Morse)

At least on Sunday morning, conditions for classic skiing at Spirit Mountain were fair at best. We only skied the intermediate (inner) loop for maybe an hour. On the outbound side of the loop, snow and grooming conditions were good, but there were a lot of windblown leaves, which collected in the tracks. This didn't seem to cause the skate skiers problems, and might not cause problems for classic skiers using no-wax skis. But, using classic waxable skis, the leaves basically made the tracks unusable - skiing through leaves really makes a mess of the wax job, and leaves the ski bottom dotted with stuck on leaf chunks. There was also a lot of windblown snow on the return side of the loop which obliterated the tracks (and, at times, most of the trail). We finished that loop, and decided to give up and ski elsewhere (in this case, Boulder Lake, where the trails were in excellent condition with no leaves).

(Len Crowley)