Midwest Minnesota 17-18 Season

[Gentry]

Thanks for the vid. Keeping a close eye on the weather. Looking to hit up Welch Saturday or Sunday.

Update: Looking to hit up Welch tomorrow. Forecast shows snow in the PM. 35 degrees. Great conditions. If anyone else is out that way let me know, I'll likely be solo so I'm always down to hang.

 

[focker]

I'll be at Trollhaugen tomorrow well before the lifts open. Looking like they'll end up with 7" on top of the 5" they got on Thursday night. Conditions should be as good as they get locally.

A full 6" of fluffy light snow at my house in Blaine.

 

[focker]

Just an absolutely amazing day of skiing today. Skied the trees off Lee's Run at Troll for a couple of hours and found a bunch of untouched lines with 9-10" of fresh snow. Perfect temps, sunshine. Just amazing. Crowds were heavy but the lift line died down after about of hour of 3-5 minute waits.

 

[Gentry]

Best run(s) at Lutsen: GO

 

[focker]

Best run(s) at Lutsen: GO

Although I've skied 5 full days there I don't really know many of the names of the trails at Lutsen. Their trail map is absolutely brutal. if Lutsen wants to style itself as a 'west coast type mountain' (which they are always trying to do) they should have an artist create a real trail map for them and not that garbage they have on their site. (Rant over)

Almost all of Eagle Mountain is really fun IMO. We usually ski the steep western facing stuff and just ski back to the triple at the lodge rather than go all the way down to the old lifts at the bottom. Bridge run is beautiful run as well even though it's not very steep. There are some good trees along that area as well.

On Moose we usually ski the run around Bull Run most often, but again most all of Moose is pretty fun. The runs off the back side aren't worth it due to the long flat return needed.

 

[Gentry]

Although I've skied 5 full days there I don't really know many of the names of the trails at Lutsen. Their trail map is absolutely brutal. if Lutsen wants to style itself as a 'west coast type mountain' (which they are always trying to do) they should have an artist create a real trail map for them and not that garbage they have on their site. (Rant over)

Preach. I swear I've sat for hours flipping between the Google satellite map and the trail map trying to make sense of the layout of this mountain and I'm still perplexed.

 

[focker]

Preach. I swear I've sat for hours flipping between the Google satellite map and the trail map trying to make sense of the layout of this mountain and I'm still perplexed.

I think of Lutsen as two ski area linked by a gondola. You have the eagle/mystery/ullr area and then the moose area. Each of the two would need it's own trail map. A well drawn map should be able to contain all the runs on eagle/mystery/ullr.

 

[Gentry]

Good snow out there right now. Welch skiied great yesterday. Crossing my fingers for some more snow, preferably up north, as I'm booked for Lutsen at the end of the month.

 

[Dwight]

Looks like you could have some fun coming up.

 

[focker]

Could be fun yes, but also looks to be super wet heavy snow that's really not all that fun to ski in. I'm hearing that big day shown (Saturday) could have a lot of rain involved before it starts snowing.

 

[Gentry]

Trying not to get my hopes up too much until we get a little closer, these models have been bouncing all over the place.

 

[Gentry]

Meeting a buddy for a day at Lutsen (Thursday) and Spirit (Friday). I haven't been to Lutsen since I was a teen so I'm excited to ride the new gondola and high speed lift. We're staying at the Villas on top of Spirit Mountain which looks like ski in/ski out. Forecast shows Duluth might get some AM snow on Friday so that might even be the better day (on the smaller mountain). Last hurrah of the season for me. Conditions obviously not the most ideal right now but I'm excited to just get out there.

 

[Gentry]

Finally started to feel like I was getting the hang of the layout at Lutsen when the clock hit 4pm. Wasted a bunch of time taking the Moose Return, not knowing that most people just take the gondola back to the base area. Did a bunch of laps on the black runs on Eagle Mountain which were fun.

Went to Spirit on Friday morning and got first chair to a couple inches of fresh. Great views but definitely got a little bored by about 2pm. Timber Cruiser is fun but like a bunch of other runs at Spirit, I felt like it flattened out near the end too much, with a long run out to the chair.

 

[focker]

Pretty cool that Trollhaugen and Wild are reopening this coming weekend for 2 more days of fun. Of course with ONE FOOT of fresh snow in the last 48 hours who can blame them.

Wild hinted today that they may be open the weekend of April 15th and 16th as well. I don't think I've even seen any local areas open that late.

Surprising to me that Afton and Welch have already closed. Seems a lot of our bigger storms this year were on the south side of town. Amazing how much colder Troll and Wild stay and how much better they hold their snow than Afton and Welch. But maybe Welch closing was just a business decision and they still have snow?

$20 to ski at Troll and Wild if you show a season pass from ANY resort FYI.

 

[Gentry]

Welch closing seems like a biz decision. They've definitely got snow. I don't pretend to understand the economics of running a ski hill so I won't be too harsh on them.

 

[Dave Petersen]

Been wondering how Lutsen will be in a week or two. I've always wanted to try it.

 

[crgildart]

Pretty cool that Trollhaugen and Wild are reopening this coming weekend for 2 more days of fun. Of course with ONE FOOT of fresh snow in the last 48 hours who can blame them.

Wild hinted today that they may be open the weekend of April 15th and 16th as well. I don't think I've even seen any local areas open that late.

Surprising to me that Afton and Welch have already closed. Seems a lot of our bigger storms this year were on the south side of town. Amazing how much colder Troll and Wild stay and how much better they hold their snow than Afton and Welch. But maybe Welch closing was just a business decision and they still have snow?

$20 to ski at Troll and Wild if you show a season pass from ANY resort FYI.

Even in the good olde days I don't remember ever seeing a Minneapolis area hill still turning the lifts in April. Mid March St Pats them was traditionally the end of season party IIRC back in the 70s and 80s..

 

[crgildart]

Been wondering how Lutsen will be in a week or two. I've always wanted to try it.

Lutsen and Bohemia are definitely on my stretch goal bucket list..

 

[focker]

Been wondering how Lutsen will be in a week or two. I've always wanted to try it.

Their last weekend with all 4 hills open is this coming weekend. After that they'll have Moose and Eagle open until Sunday April 15th. They then close for weekday skiing and are only open weekends on Eagle (which is almost completely north facing and steep for great snow preservation) for as long as they can go.

FYI 2 day passes are only $60 starting the weekend of the 21st, which is a pretty good deal. I looked into going this weekend but their lodging is almost completely booked up. Apparently this mountain meltdown they do with bands on outdoor and indoor stages and stuff is pretty popular.

 

[focker]

Even in the good olde days I don't remember ever seeing a Minneapolis area hill still turning the lifts in April. Mid March St Pats them was traditionally the end of season party IIRC back in the 70s and 80s..

Right. Most years it seems like the last weekend in March, if not the weekend before, is the end of it. There's not a lot of years where they run out of customer's before they run out of snow. Just seems like people stop skiing once April comes around.

I'll report back on Saturday after we ski Troll. I wonder how the crowds will be?