Cross-Country Ski in Spring

Hepatica and pasqueflower may be blooming in southern Minnesota, but the skiing is still good in the snowy hills above Lake Superior. Sugarbush, near Tofte, has 70 kilometers of cross-country ski trails that are often skiable into April. Late one spring morning I click into my skis and climb a maple-clad hillside. The trees are plastered in hoarfrost from yesterday’s thaw. Chickadees flit through fog from maple to birch while singing their snowmelt song, spring’s here.

Sugarbush has loops as short as a kilometer as well as the Picnic Loop, a gorgeous monster that runs 30 kilometers without passing a building or road. After a long recovery from an injury, I hope I’m up for it and sweat my way into the long loop’s highlands. Overhead, patches of blue open in the low clouds, signaling a breeze that rattles frost-rimed branches, shaking loose puffs of glittery shards onto the freshly groomed ski trail corduroy. With every plant of my left ski, I feel a bite from the newest screws in my knee. The leg muscles still fire slowly, their balance not perfect, but their strength is returning. My relief at gliding freely again through the forest surges like the tsunami of blue that’s swept clear the sky.

Finally, it’s down the last hill to the lot where my car appears, containing the water I’ve been craving, plus a bacon sandwich and a slice of lemon pie. Behind snow-sagging balsam branches sits the Sawbill Ranger Cabin, built a century ago and later moved to this trailhead. Inside the tiny cabin awaits a bench, woodstove, kindling, and split birch, all tidily arranged for an apres-ski fire. 
 

Best Chances for Spring Skiing

• Sugarbush is in the Superior National Forest and is maintained by the Sugarbush Trail Association. The Onion River Road portion gets groomed the latest into spring. Learn more at www.sugarbushtrail.org.     

• Maplelag, a destination cross-country ski center in northwestern Minnesota, is usually open until mid-March, and often later. “If we get a late-season storm in April, we will groom and open up trails,” says owner Jay Richards.

• Central Gunflint Trails, 27 miles up the Gunflint Trail from Grand Marais, have 70 kilometers maintained by a partnership between the Golden Eagle and Bearskin resorts. Sarah Uptain, manager at Golden Eagle, says grooming continues through March as long as there’s snow.

• Trails in Minnesota state parks and national forests are sometimes skiable into March or April, depending on conditions and location.

• Trails in Twin Cities regional parks that use manufactured snow—Elm Creek, Hyland Lake, Battle Creek, and Wirth—build up mini-glaciers of faux snow that stick around after the natural snow has melted.

Trail Reports and Passes

• Skinnyski.com is the leading source for user-supplied trail reports from around the Midwest.

• The Great Minnesota Ski Pass is required at Sugarbush and more than 90 other ski trails, including those in state parks. Pass sales fund trail grooming. Learn more and purchase passes at mndnr.gov/skiing/skipass.

• Check state park ski trail conditions at mndnr.gov/snow_depth/index.html.

• The Central Gunflint Trails require a pass purchased from either Golden Eagle Lodge or Bearskin Lodge. Learn more at golden-eagle.com or bearskin.com.