Another nice skate ski today with the same stipulations as yesterday in place. Walkers are now allowed to walk on the ski trails, but at least today they tended to stay east and closer to the interpretive center, and seemed to cause little disruption to the trails that I skied.

(Michael Wilke)

Found a fairly large sweet spot between 11am and 1pm. Mostly really good skate deck west of the tunnel portal to sheltered trails. Getting there is no problem, only interrupted with small areas of melt that are expected by the frequent visitors, but could be discouraging to the first timers. Skating is probably the best overall choice, but again plenty of good track west for those seeking a long good bye to this winter bliss. I am filled with gratitude to decision makers who transformed Sunday's 4 inch snow gift into an almost perfect spring ski surface. Coming back tomorrow a little earlier as I believe tonight will freeze, but probably warm a little faster than today.

Photos:

(Michael Wilke)

They groomed everything on Tuesday. They cut up and removed the tree blocking the trail and they made a bypass where the overflowing pond crosses the trail a few hundred yards from the start. I think William O'Brien has a few days left of skiing in it. Hitting the sweet spot as it transitions from ice to mush may be the key. The trail is worst at the beginning and gets better after you portage past the bare spot by the campground. Everything on the far side of the railroad tracks is completely snow covered and quite good.

(Paul Schaaf)

Fresh snow with no grooming; classic tracks were skied in but icy. Skating trails were not groomed with 1-2” of powder and a handful of skate tracks. Exposed blacktop near the start, birch tree across the trail about 1 mile in. A great day with sunlight and good snow.

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(Michael Mckinney)

It had not been groomed when I arrived at 2:30 this afternoon. Wetland trail from visitor center to Savannah Campground is rough; expect to remove skis to get around some bare spots. Once past the campground conditions improve. Classic track is icy in spots, good in others. Skate deck looks fair to good.

(Patti Isaacs)

The park had 3-4” of fresh snow on Sunday and had been skied on during the snow. When I skied this morning (11 am), the beginning of the trail was icy with some snow cover. Farther down the trail, the ice was gone and I skied in fresh, loose snow, and there was a birch tree that had fallen across the trail. Unfortunately, this made the skiing very slow. It is hard to understand why the park has not groomed the trails after the nice snowfall.

(Chuck Howe)

William O'Brien had great skate ski conditions throughout the system. Very few small workarounds in the usual spots. Skate lane had been groomed this morning or last evening. One other skier track preceded me. I felt so fortunate for such perfect conditions. No other skiers encountered, only walkers, but most of them walked on the side and expressed surprise that it was skier-only. My karma remained elated and the ski did it's peaceful work. Classic tracks seemed generally good enough and safe at 1pm, but skating seemed the better choice today.

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(Michael Wilke)

Skied my Korteloppet today and was happy overall with the conditions. I started around 10 and the skate deck was icy but softened up as the morning progressed. The tricky part was the water spots near the cabins but I was able to carefully maneuver through it. (Took the “detour” once and fell on a rock.) The trails were better west of the railroad tracks. My son classic skied. He said the tracks were icy with a half dozen bare spots but none were longer than 10 feet in length. He used grip tape. I encountered 4 hikers walking on the skate deck - grrrr. Anyone skiing Saturday should probably find similar conditions as today. There were only a handful of people out there today so the trails were lightly used. I’m glad we got our virtual races done without crowds.

(Margie Grilley)

Excellent conditions for skiing the virtual Korte or Birkie today or for just skiing, no race bib needed! The groomer was out around 9 am and we had fabulous conditions except for the culvert/ice flow/water patch about 1 km out from the Trailhead. This is becoming a bigger problem it seems and circumventing it by skiing into the woods was not very feasible. I saw some skiers ski right through the layer of water on ice. Others took off their skis and crunched through the thin band of snow to the right. Other than that problem - which I hope they can solve for coming years - the trails were phenomenal.

(Julie Anderson)

Perfect conditions and beautiful day. We classic skied all of the outer trails (10.9 miles total). Classic tracks were excellent with almost no leaves/debris. No bare spots. No ice except where a clogged culvert caused water to flow over the trail just before the Savanah campground. This was easily avoided with a 50 ft detour through the woods. Skate deck was great, too. Looked like all the trails had been groomed within the past day or so. Even the Riverside Trail, though it doesn't have set tracks, had nice snow for classic skiing. Don't ski on the river, though, as river ice can never be considered completely safe. Swix V-10 gave great kick and glide. We made good use of the third Adirondack shelter (on the Prairie Overlook trail) for a lunch stop in the sun. We saw two deer next to the shelter and three deer on Alice Lake. My 56th consecutive day of skiing!

Photos:

(Craig Wiklund)