It’s been a bit warmer than we’d like it to be for the past couple days, but luckily we have lots of snow so the sunny days and warm temps have had very little impact on our snow cover.  Trails are all recently groomed and in good shape.  The sun is out and the sky is clear today, making the ice coated trees sparkle in the sunlight.  It would be a gorgeous day to be outside enjoying nature.

This has  been a wildly busy weekend, but we predict that the next few days will be quieter.  Bearskin is lucky to be almost full for most days through early March, but for some peculiar reason the next week is almost empty.  Some combination of Superbowl Sunday, a 3- day weekend coming up soon, and who knows, maybe  the alignment of the stars, made this a week when people didn’t take off work to go skiing.  We’re running a nice “3 days for the price of 2 days”  special in some of our cabins as an incentive to drive up an enjoy our wonderful snow.  Our musher has many dog sled trip appointments open this week, our massage therapist will be here Tuesday and Thursday, and Chad is taste-testing his new restaurant menu choices on Tuesday –  lots of fun to be had here at Bearskin over the next few days, at a very affordable price.  Check out www.bearskin.com or give us a call at 800.338.4170

 All the trails on both sides of the system were groomed over the weekend.  Then (of course!) it snowed like crazy until about noon today.  We received about 2 inches of new snow this morning, on top of our already abundant snowfall.

 The groomers were out on the system all day again today.  Check in at the lodges before you go out on the trail system right now, especially if you’re planning to skate ski.  A few trails are in the midst of a process for flattening out the surface, so the skate lanes are temporarily altered.     Skiers are seeing lots of animal activities on the trails right now.  A moose trashed the trails on Bear Cub over the weekend, happily demolishing  tracks so that the entire trail had to be regroomed. Three or more very large Pileated Woodpeckers have been “posing” for pictures along the Beaver Dam trail.  Fox tracks are everywhere — even on our lodge decks!  It’s a great time to view winter wildlife.   And if you decide to come up to stay or ski, drive watchfully on the Gunflint Trail, especially after dark. Almost everyone has been spotting moose standing in the trail in the evening hours.  They are a sight everyone hopes to see in this area,  but not especially in front of a vehicle!

Fell behind on the trail report blog while out of town.  Here’s the essential summary:  LOTS of snow.  Everything groomed.  Guests very, very happy to be out skiing.

Temps have been in the high 20′s, so there seems to be a lot of coat changing going on. Perfect weather to enjoy our real winter. 

 We have an opening for this weekend in Cabin 10 (which has a  beautiful new stone fireplace), but otherwise Bearskin is full this weekend and next.  Consider taking a mid-week ski trip–weekday prices are a little lower, and mid-week skiing is the very best because there are even fewer skiers out there.