Elise Watchorn

Don’t be discouraged by the completely bare fields on the drive out to Minnedosa: there is indeed snow in them thar hills! More snow would be welcome of course but there is good coverage and no bare spots or obstacles poking through. Trails have been trackset: the grooming is on the older side, but that actually made it easier to ski fast but in c…[Read more]

The West side trails are in good spring shape! The grooming has held up well: the classic tracks are shallow but consistent (best on Fox Den and Jackrabbit). I didn’t have amazing kick, but double poling was great. Skating conditions were excellent! I couldn’t have asked for better. No walking damage at all.

There’s still plenty of snow cover…[Read more]

We figured the Pine Falls trails would still be skiable… and we found them much better than skiable! The club had groomed while it was warm, then received some fresh snow and groomed again: the result is deep firm tracks with lovely fresh snow texture. The Entrance Hills and Sunshine Hills are closed off for the season, but the Chalet Hills were g…[Read more]

We had a good ski at Birch yesterday: we did laps of both North and South trails. The only detail I’d add to Birch’s update below is that there is still a ton of snow here! There were only one or two tiny patches of ground peeking through, in exposed areas of North loop. The South loop is perfect and everywhere forested should be good for a whi…[Read more]

We skied Red, Orange and Black today. Typical spring skiing: crispy in the morning, and then soft in the afternoon. There is still lots and lots of snow, and trails are mostly in good shape.

A section of the Black/Green trail had been torn up by walkers. When we got back to our car, we found a note on the windshield (written on a mask, ew) which…[Read more]

Everybody and their dog was out at Sandilands today, skiing every which way. Conditions were decent, with fresh snow over Thursday’s grooming. Nearly everything had been well skied in, and glide was good. Exceptions were Black (hadn’t been skied since the last snowfall) and Blue (hasn’t been skied in a looong time). Beautiful day!

Pretty decent conditions at Seven Sisters this afternoon. Looks like it hasn’t been groomed in a little while, but obviously has been regularly skied. There’s a solid base with a fair bit of new snow on top. The tracks are deep and straight and well skied, but not firm side to side. Pole plant zone is a bit soft. Open areas, like the picnic sit…[Read more]

Excellent, deep, fresh classic tracks at Pine Falls / Duck Lake today! All the trails are nicely groomed, including all our favourite hilly side trails (Entrance Hills, Chalet Hills, Chalet Loop, Sunshine Hills) that branch off the main, central, flatter loops. The packing on the hill ascents is particularly fantastic: firm enough to fully trust…[Read more]

Grand Beach has received just a bit of snow since the last grooming, but plenty of folks were out skiing it down today. The snow was fast and the classic tracks are holding up well. The classic grooming is much improved since our last visit. It was all nice smooth curves, with none of those sharp zigs that suddenly kick you off to the side that I…[Read more]

This one is an adventure, alright!

We stopped in on our way home from the Whiteshell yesterday. The road is definitely impassable to normal vehicles after the Discovery Centre. But maybe having to ski the last kilometre down the snowmobile track to the trailhead is not a bug, but a feature: it turned our “we’ve skied enough today; let’s just…[Read more]

The South Whiteshell trail has not been groomed lately. We took a peek at the Nite Hawk trailhead yesterday, but the skier-tracked conditions were not appealing enough to tempt us after we’d been spoiled by the nice conditions at Falcon Ridge.

Couldn’t resist a visit to Birch after our ski at Pumpkin Creek, and it was fantastic. The grooming was fresh and it was excellent, as always. Truly, Birch’s grooming has been consistently some of the best anywhere in the province this year.

We skied a couple of loops of the south trails. It was such a wonderful warm day to fly down those loo…[Read more]

Very good conditions at Hecla today! West Quarry, in particular, which sees the most traffic, had excellent glide, but it was good everywhere. Trails have been recently groomed, then they received a bit of snow yesterday, but they’ve been skied in and are holding up nicely. More snow seems to have stuck to the branches of the fir trees than l…[Read more]

Big fluffy snow was falling heavily when we arrived at Seton this morning. Tracks were buried and soon you couldn’t see or even feel them at all. But the glide was surprisingly good, considering we were breaking trail. Take care in the parking lot and around the trailheads: it’s ice underneath this new snow. No ice on the trails, but the base was…[Read more]

Thought we might be in for some sketchy conditions as we drove up to the Brandon Hills today: nearby roads and fields were heavily iced up after the freezing rain. But trails were safe, with some new snow over hard pack.

We skied the A, B, and C loops. One skier had been there ahead of us. Aside from his marks in the shallow new snow, you’d n…[Read more]

Skied Epinette and Newfoundland trails this past weekend to spend Saturday night at Jackfish Cabin.

Trails were apparently last groomed January 26th: untouched since then due to a broken groomer. Multiple snowfalls (and lots of deer activity) had almost completely obscured any prior tracks. So we were breaking our own trail through deep snow. It…[Read more]

All trails at Pinawa were freshly groomed! We skied Blue to English River to JGG to Orange. The pole plant zone on Blue and English River was pretty soft, but the track was fast for the temps. JGG was stupendous! One bit of exposed rock on a speed bump at the bottom of a big hill on Orange, around about the 8km mark. A great afternoon!