Wow, what an incredible day on the trails. Sun popped out mid morning highlighting the beautifully flocked trees. It really is “magical” in the woods right now. We groomed most of the trail system today setting tracks on about 32km of trail. We will set more tracks in the morning and also comb out the skate trails, skaters waltz and the extension of skaters. With the full moon coming up this weekend, if we have a clear night, the skiing should be incredible with the flocked trees absorbing and reflecting the moonlight nicely. The northern trails and bootleg extension of Bullhead lake has sections almost impassable with small trees etc. bending over with snow but we are doing our best to make a cleared out way. It might be a while before we can have skating on North Loup again and for now will be setting a track down the middle of the trail as the brush/sapplings etc. are bent over so much. A neat experience to ski though! The compacted base on the trail is 6-9″ and the snow depth in the woods is 15-25″.  Packed Powder/Powder conditions.

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More snow falling Monday morning and afternoon with close to 6″ new the past 24 hours. Combined with the snow on Saturday, close to 10″ of fresh snow over three days. Today we packed out 40 of 64km of trail and also took the Pisten Bully out for the first time this year, setting tracks on Sap Run and Mother Hen. The wind is blowing pretty good in the open filling in the packed trail quickly. We will pack trails again in the morning and set tracks on a few select trails. The weight of the wet heavy snow on Saturday and extra snow today has bent over a lot of branches with some trails completely filled in with snow covered branches. The woods are definitely a winter wonderland. The only negative is the twigs and branches that have fallen down on the fresh snow. We are trying to clear the branches that we can but pretty much impossible to get everything yet this year. Use caution on the downhills!!

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Woods flocked beautifully after 4″ of snow on Saturday and 4-5″ of dry and fluffy early Monday. The snow was sticky and made for tough going at times over the weekend but gorgeous in the forest and lots of happy skiers. We are packing the trails today and set tracks once the trails are packed out. With northwest flow and cooler temps forecasted this week, should be some great skiing on tap.

Measured new snow on the ice skating rink Sunday afternoon.

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