What more could you ask for in the middle of March? Deep base, temps just below freezing for the weekend, and well – perfect trails.

It is still quite cold here, at 10d this morning, which is high for the weekend. Unseasonably cold temps have kept the trails in very good condition, and there i still a ton of off-trail snow. Generally the trails have about a 20′ base still left on them, with a few exceptions. Areas that they were plowing for the logging earlier in the season are thinner, and also portions of the RR Grade. Those areas are generally solid ice, with about 1-2′ of loose ice crystals on top. We ran the groomers on Friday and Saturday to scratch up an inch or tow to cool the sleds, which seemed to help out some. I talked to a few groups and overall everyone was happy.

The forecast for the upcoming week is a bit sketchy right now. Generally we are talking tempos in the 20s, with a rain/snow event on Tuesday afternoon-Wednesday. Looking at temps right at 32d with around 1/2′ rain, and/or 1-2′ of snow. I doubt they will know for sure until it actually hits the ground.

There is no major warm-up in the forecast for the next 10 days, and you are looking at another weekend of fantastic riding right through the end of the Month. I would like to point out that we have not yet had our big March snowstorm. In face, I’m not sure we have had more then just 2-3′ at any given time. A big March event is usually a given around here, so maybe during the last week of the month.

At this point it is probably proper to start talking about extending the season. The weekend of the 29th is going to be huge with people getting their last ride in, but trails will be just fine for for quite some time after that. Our club will generally fund a few extra runs on our own after the season is officially over, but as many of you know the mid-season took a heavy financial toll with our engine problems. It costs between $500 & $600 to do a full groom on our system, so with that in mind we may wait things out, listen to the internet and will likely only be doing one extra grooming run after the season is officially over. That extra run would be done on a Thursday or Friday night and should get the trails in pretty good shape for the following weekend. Keep an eye on our webpage for the information about that right at the end of the season as we will have ridable trails in April for sure. We will schedule it to get the maximum out of our time, so if they trails are in good shape for April 5th, we will fix them back up for the 12th. Hopefully people have one or 2 more weekends they can get away for this epic season.

Base: 20 inches

Snowfall Past 24 hours: 0 inches

Last Grooming: Every other weekday, and all Weekend.

Current Trail Conditions: Good to Excellent

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So it has been fairly quiet on the forum lately, but you can’t say that about the trails. I have had a couple people tell me that Saturday was the busiest day that we have had all year. Tons and tons of sleds everywhere, long distance riders, Island riders and day riders alike all went out to tear up our trails! Temps on Saturday got to around 30, which finally softened things up dramatically and when you have lots of sleds, warmer temps and a DEEP base, that spells mougles. The worst the groomers have seen all season, even when we didn’t run for 3 days in January! It was soft enough that the grooming speed was about 1/2 of what we normally run, and the Grade out of Iggy was bar far the worst. There was even enough traffic that they tore up the Castle Rock trail in the corners. Don’t worry, Sundays run got everything fixed back up the way it is supposed to be.

It is warm again today and I don’t expect the trail to hold up if we get any more traffic. Tuesday is going to be warm again too, with a big cool down to single digits on Wednesday which should freeze everything in really well.

Friday it will be warm again, so expect things to get tore up again, which should be all fixed up for Saturday morning riders. The temps are supposed to remain in the 15-20 range for the near future, with the exception of Mon, Tues & Fri. So this weekend will again be perfect and epic riding. This is shaping up to be the best March in a very very long time.

Plan out the rest of your Month for riding, as the trails will survive a weeks worth of 50d temps no problem. The base out there is currently 24-30’+ deep which will last and last. Just remember that when it does get warm, any kind of traffic will tear it up. The groomers will fix it, but you will need to expect some mougles at the end of the day.

Base: 24 inches

Snowfall Past 24 hours: 0 inches

Last Grooming: Every other weekday, and all Weekend.

Current Trail Conditions: Good to Excellent

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For the latest St. Ignace Reports Click Here