While most have been dreading the extended winter St. Paul has been experiencing, the Lakeland Cross Country Ski Club is on top of the world.
According to club president Pierre Lamoureux, it is perhaps the longest season the club has ever seen, as skiers took to the trail in late October and will likely stay on them through the third week of April.
“That kind of a start to the season is historic. Before then, the earliest anyone had ever skied in this area was November 11-12,” he said. “So a historic beginning and a fantastic finish to a banner snow year.”
What’s more, the recent snowfall has made for the best trail conditions of the season.
“The quality of the snow right now is great. We’ve got cold, fresh snow. It’s not wet and that makes the quality of the snow,” Lamoureux said. “It’s fresh and cold, come and get it.”
Lamouerux said there were a number of conditions that factored into the current trail conditions, all of which ended up working out in the club’s favor.
“It’s a combination of the snow cover, firstly, we have a great volume of snow cover. Also I think the fact that the weather cooperated in not creating huge freeze-melt cycles, so we didn’t have to do too much renovating,” Lamoureux said. “We had to do more track setting than renovating. Renovating means you have to break up ice on the track and mix in new snow with old. We’ve only had to do that once this year, maybe.”
While drifting snow caused for concern, Lamoureux said that thanks to the work of the club’s volunteer grooming team, skiers can enjoy some fantastic conditions on the Cooknell trails just north of town.
“When we heard of the drifting and all the road issues we thought we would have to do some work here on our trails, but thanks to our fantastic grooming team with Don Michaud and Wayne Krekoski things worked out,” he said. “Wayne came out and single handedly took on the snow drift and he did a stellar job, and thanks to dedication like that we can ski into mid-April.”
Lamoureux added that the club has held two moonlight skis so far this season, and hopes to hold its third this Friday night at around 9 p.m.
“The second one was beautiful, we had about 10-12 people and we’re hoping to have a great turnout for Good Friday evening with as many people as can come to enjoy this beautiful snow,” he said. “I’d say people should shoot for 9 p.m. and then we’ll see what kind of lighting conditions we have.”
