Category Archives: Summer

Laddies Loppet Mountain Bike Race

Kids Comp racers lined up for the first race of the day, Laddies Loppet 2023.Thanks everyone that came for the final race in the Minnesota Mountain Bike Series. Thanks to all the volunteers, race officials and support personal that helped make it a great day despite the warm temperatures.

The mountain bike trails will remain open until November 1st. Latest MTB report click here.

Laddies Loppet Mountain Bike Race

We are excited to be maintaining our tradition of hosting the Minnesota Mountain Bike Series race, the Laddies Loppet on Sunday of Labor Day weekend. This will be year 33 we have hosted the race making it one of the longest running events in the Midwest. Registration for the race can be found on the MNMBS website. 

Start area for all races and access point to course for pre riding. Registration is in picnic shelter just to the left of the photo!

Registering for camping space can be found on our products page. Any questions please email us at maplelag@arvig.net

Latest MTB report click here.

Start times and distances (laps) for Sunday race.

July 16th Update

Hard to believe we are already in the middle of July and half of the summer has passed! July has been unseasonable cold, and up until a few weeks ago where we have received nearly 3″ of rain the past two weeks, very dry. Overall it has been a beautiful summer with some fantastic sunsets, starry skies and not too many fallen trees on the trails.

Summer grooming on the ski trails.

This summer we continue to be busy on the trails, mowing on the ski trails and fine tuning the mountain bike singletrack. It’s always great seeing riders out and visiting. Once again, we will be hosting the Laddies Loppet mountain bike race, as part of the Minnesota Mountain Bike series.

One of the many camping spaces available for the bike race weekend. The warming house in the background has been touched up and will be used as registration area for the bike race.

The weekend will obviously be a bit different this year with no lodge and the cross country race will be held on Sunday, like the other races in the series. There will be no short track race this year. We will not have any lodging available, at this point, but will allow camping like previous years. We are still working out details for food trucks and concessions but either way plan on a fun day of mountain biking and family fellowship, while racing on Maplelag’s signature singletrack.

Brant cabin renovation. Future store!

The biggest news to report is the start of remodeling on some of the cabins. This past week we began work in the Brant cabin to be used as a day lodge like it was this past winter. We plan to have a store and hope to have some items to sell by Labor Day bike race weekend. The store will feature the more popular clothing and we have plans to bring in some new items made by local artists. There will be no meal service at this time. It will be a work in progress. As difficult as it was, and we know for some of our guests as well, to change the look of the storied Brant cabin, moving forward we feel this action fits best our vision of the model moving forward considering all the parameters in our thought process.

Custom Maplelag coffee mugs crafted by local artist Mary Laabs.

Later this summer we will be remodeling in the cabins of Lapland, Candy Store, Six Swedes and also both cabooses. The above mentioned cabins we plan to rent for the upcoming winter season, possibly earlier depending on how construction goes. Since we are doing many of these projects “in house” it takes a bit more time but also allows us to make changes on the fly and craft and create as we think best. The above cabins are also on the slate to have a new paint job! Regarding taking reservations and booking these spaces, we will have more information available later this summer once we feel comfortable doing so based on the progress. We are doing much of the work ourselves as we mentioned.

Jonell painting in her future office!

We want to thank everyone again for their love, prayers and steadfast support. The next phase of Maplelag will be very different and change can be hard but we have to do what we feel is best for our interests and inspiration to best serve our guests. We look forward to seeing folks at Maplelag again soon! Enjoy the rest of the summer and we will update next month with hopefully a favorable progress report.

Another beautiful summer sunset on Little Sugarbush.

June 7th Update

Summer has arrived quickly, it has been just over one month since we were skiing and there was still ice on the lake!  The forest has filled out completely with each wildflower blooming a record crop. Consistent rainfall has brought the woods to a vibrant and lush state.

Big crop of yellow slipper this year.

We have begun our summer grooming on the trails preparing for the ski season and continue trail maintenance on the mountain bike trails which remain open for mountain biking. We always enjoy seeing people out challenging themselves on our natural/classic trail system. 

Second grooming on the big hill to Bullhead lake

We have also transplanted tamarack trees to the property. One idea we plan to implement is planting 10 trees in memory of Maplelag guests that have passed in the year. We are saddened to hear of the passing of long time guests these past few months and keeping all family and friends in our thoughts and prayers. 

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Cleaning up at lodge site, June 6th, 2023.

As far as the rebuilding plans of a new lodge, we are still in a holding period as we await final insurance claims and also look for new insurance which, as expected, has been difficult. Until these two components are settled, we can not move forward with a rebuild of a lodge. However, we will continue with trail and grounds maintenance and have the trails open for day use. Other summer projects on select cabins include exterior painting, new flooring, new mattresses and resort upkeep. Even though we will not be hosting the Concordia Language Villages, unfortunately, we will be very busy with our skelton staff of family and the “machine” Keith.

We hope to begin taking reservations for fall or winter rentals late summer for select cabins we are making improvements on.

Brant cabin open for day use for mountain bikers


We will have camping available for the Laddies Loppet Mountain Bike race weekend. It was great to attend one of the series race last weekend and see many of the faces that come to Maplelag and get ideas for our new one day event this year.

In closing, we want thank everyone who continues to reach out to us and see how we are doing. It is still hard to believe the fire event on October 10th and process what has happened. It is a long road to recovery and the future of rebuilding.

Have a safe and enjoyable summer and we will touch base mid summer with another update!