A rather warm day with temps in the upper 60’s. Combined with the wind and sunny skies, the trails have dried out nicely. Bullhead Lake trail seeing trail work action today, completing the major Fall grooming for the year. We will continue fine tuning the trails until the snow flies for real but otherwise things are looking great and the trails are ready for winter! Water flowing nicely from the spring near the “bootleg” extension. The bootleg extension is a 1.5km loop off a Bullhead lake trail. The flowage was once the source of water for the Sugarbush Township bootleg operation. Also find it interesting that the water that flows from a spring, which starts 100 feet up in elevation to the east, eventually makes it way to the Red River via Bullhead Lake, Sugarbush Lake, St. Claire lake, Buffalo river and the Wild Rice River (to name a few) before hooking up with the Red River which flows north to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba Canada. For residents of Grand Forks, ND and East Grand Forks MN, chances are that nice clean glass of water you are drinking could very well have traces of water from the bootleg flowage, as sources of the drinking water comes from the Red River!! Heading farther north, Enjoy!
Trails have dried out for the most part, a few low and protected areas still wet. A run of extremely nice weather for the end of October/first few days of November. At Maplelag, the weather is nice when it is sunny and 55 and weather is nice when it is snowy and 25!! Riding has been very nice on the mountain bike singletrack as of late. We will close the trails down with deer hunting approaching next weekend. Looks like a few more days of warmer like weather before we get cold again and chances for snow later in the week. We will soon be to the time of year where any snow that falls, has a good chance of sticking around the entire winter. Fall grooming on Bullhead planned for tomorrow and after Bullhead is completed, all the trails will be ready to go. We will continue clearing any sticks and deadfall up until the snow flies.
The snow from Sunday’s storm has melted off and the trails are starting to dry up. The ponds and sloughs are very high as a result of the excessive moisture this Fall, bringing the water tables to their most highest levels in recent years. Has been a beautiful week in the woods and we have enjoyed having up to 30 trumpeter swans swimming and flying over Little Sugarbush this week as well. On a still calm morning, it is quite fascinating to watch and listen to. Photos below from this past week.
With morning lows near 20 Tuesday morning, the snow had a hard time melting off, especially in the protected areas, which allowed for a late morning ski on select trails. Suicide Hill was holding very good coverage and made for some nice skiing under beautiful conditions. Afternoon saw warmer temps and snow loss but Wednesday morning still see large patches of white throughout the woods. Should get warm enough today to melt off the remaining snow from Sunday’s storm and quite a bit warmer on Thursday that should melt what remains. It certainly was a treat to ski this early in the season and it won’t be long until the next storm comes rolling through with white. Cold nights setting up ice on area ponds but will have a hard time staying locked in with warmer temps forecasted. The north and south ends of Bullhead lake trail still needs Fall grooming and hopefully end of the week we can clear this trail. Some deadfall did come down with the wind on Sunday and we will be clearing the trails the next few weeks. Photos taken Tuesday.
A beautiful day in the woods after the wind settled down and sun out in full force. Cold temps keeping the melting at a minimum with high temp just above freezing. For late October, pretty nice skiing early this morning and late afternoon, mainly on Suicide Hill which has the best protection from sun and warm temps. Should manage another ski tomorrow morning before warming temps tomorrow melts most of the remaining snow. With calm conditions and very cold temps, should see some serious ice in the morning. Photos taken Monday, October 27th.
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