Jay Richards | Maplelag Resort

Winter returns! A dusting of snow greeting us this morning with windy conditions making it feel like the single digits. Wow, quite a change from earlier in the week. Looks like an inch additional of snow possible today as cooler weather is welcomed to start freezing down the ground. The trails are in great shape and ready for more snow which looks promising the next 10 days. Thanks to the newly formed Moorhead Nordic ski team for coming out early Saturday morning to help clear trail.

Overall it has been great conditions to be in the woods this fall as we fine tune the trails. We have been mainly clearing deadfall and leaves off the trail, preparing them for the first snows and early season skiing.

October 28th we had our first snowfall of the year which was just enough for a quick morning ski before for the kids before heading off to school! The snow melted off from the warm ground underneath but light snow fell throughout the day. At dusk the snow started to pick up again with almost 4″ setting on the ground. A night ski with headlamps was on order and a fun ski was had on the inner trail. The falling snow turned to rain and temps warming during the night melted off the snow by Thursday morning. Although it was too early for snow to stay, it is always exciting to see white on the ground and trees flocked beautifully.

We had a beautiful fall of color with some fantastic scenes in the forest. Photos of the fall color can be found on the fall color page. or Facebook page.

The mountain bike trails are closed for the season. (Click here for latest mountain bike trail report and information on mountain biking at Maplelag.)

Overall the trails are looking great as we have been mowing almost daily preparing them for winter. We are over 1000 miles of mowing so far this summer and fall! Sounds like a lot but with almost 40 miles of trails and each trail taking 4-6 passes to mow entire trail and some trails mowed up to 20 times during a season it adds up!

Total rainfall since the middle of May has been around 30″ of rain bringing the water tables to normal levels after a dry winter and spring.

We spend just as many hours if not more on the trails outside the winter season to be prepared for low snow years and to be able to open the trails on as little as 3″ of dense snow. We thrive on grooming and having the trails open on as little snow as possible and prepare the trails in the off season with this mindset. We are now busy as ever on the trails, preparing them for the winter season.