Wirth

After an exciting afternoon of Minnesota-themed Olympic television—the 50k (exciting) and the gold medal hockey game (exciting)—I decided I'd had too much sitting. Plus, I wanted to see what the mountain bike trail was looking like at Wirth. So I went and did the snowmaking side trails. Once. Slowly.

The trails are in very good shape with a few notable deficiencies. There were several large ice chunks just past the equipment shed which, after sticking my tip in to one of them, I kicked/pushed off the trail. The main other issue is that going over or around the mound is becoming an issue. Over is thinning out on both the uphill and downhill. Going around to the south is suffering as the slope melts from the high sunshine and undermines the trail. (Of course, last year this happened early in February, not on the last day.) They've groomed around the ice/water, but it's thinning quickly. It might soon be time to groom to the north side of the mound. Otherwise, everything is good and generally powdery, although hills with southern exposure are getting icy. And the bike trail looks superb. I might try that out tomorrow.