Iowa Ski Trail Update: December 2017

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Prairie Springs XC Ski and Snowshoe Trails - Cresco

We have plenty of cold but not a great deal of snow! We had two light snowfalls this past week and have 3-4 inches on the ground. Rolled the Bike Trail, Campground Trail, Campground Loop and Campground Road on Friday afternoon. These trails are on smooth surfaces so they look pretty good, but the packed surface is only a couple of inches on top of no base so won't hold up long; but we have to get started making a base! I would classify conditions as marginal.

Remember the Iowa Winter Games Classical and Freestyle races are here on January 27 - 10 AM Classical and 2 PM Freestyle. Happy New Year and Happy Skiing!

Pilot Knob Lake

Here's an update on Pilot Knob Lake just east of Forest City. We had about 1/2" of snow on the ice from a couple of weeks ago. The ice was finally thick enough to work on by Monday the 25th. By using the snow mover it ended up being about 1/2" of packed snow. Tuesday it skated surprisingly well.

Working with 1/2" of snow on ice surface the 25th

Skated very well but only 1/2" thick

We received another 1" last Wednesday night so it again was scraped on to trail.

Rolling a fresh 1" last Thursday. Base is packed at 1"

A couple of us were enjoying skate skiing Friday while it was snowing. And the glide was again good even with about 3" of fresh fluffy snow on the 1" packed base.

Skate skiing Friday the 29th.

We ended up with about 4 to 5" of fluffy snow Friday. So it was rolled again Friday night. Plus I pulled the tracksetter behind the roller to lay our first classic tracks of the season. I'll try to take the Ginzu out today or Monday for a better finish.

This is a flat 1.5km loop on the ice of Pilot Knob Lake. It can be accessed by parking at the sledding hill parking lot, start at the warming shed and ski south.

Rolling 4 to 5" of fluffy snow over 1" packed base.