Category: Trail Report

Grooming is done for the year at Chief Joseph Pass, but there is still plenty of snow and the trails are still in great shape for skate or classic skiing. The cabin is still open for day use until the 15th.

Our grooming crew planned on grooming at Como this morning, but it was pouring rain, so grooming was canceled. Most likely there will not be any more grooming at Como this season.

Earlier in the week the skiing was still good, and it will probably be good conditions this weekend for touring skis. The higher elevation trails should hold snow for a few more weeks, but you might have to do some walking to get to it.

Conditions at Como held up well over the weekend, despite the warm temperatures, and there should be good skiing for at least the next few days. Best skiing will probably be between 10 and 2, or after sunset.

All the ski trails at lake Como were groomed this morning. Should be great out there this weekend.

Lot’s of new snow! 12″ on 550A, 15″+ on Middle road and over 18″ on the Upper road since last Fridays groom.

Grooming crew was out till dark packing it down, got every trail rolled, still soft but should be firm enough to skate on by morning, 550A is the firmest of the trails. Was still snowing when we left but it’s not supposed to amount to too much more tonight.

Got the connector “Chute” track packed with the machines, should be easy to connect Middle rd. and 550A now, still a hike unless you’re crazy.

Also got the trail up to the Overlook from the end of Upper rd. track packed, always worth going up there for the view (the photo!).

The 550 road from the Boat Ramp up to the 550A/550 intersection is impassable now, any attempts to drive up it just end up in a bigger mess, last batch of snow was the closing event! We took the grooming equipment to it tonight and just flattened it out to make it safer to ski on.

We’ve gone beyond being able to keep it plowed with our normal guy and his pick up due to so much heavy wet snow so unless someone wants to loan out their front end loader we’ll just keep it groomed to the bottom for the rest of the season.

We also track packed the hiking trail short cut from the Boat Ramp to the 550A/550 intersection, look for the Hiker sign with the blue diamonds on it, (east end of Boat ramp before the stop sign) and walk up from there, it’s a quick hike and allows you to not have to ski the lower road part. When we’re on our good skate skis we always walk up that way.

580 trail has a few inches on it but seems to be rideable, Chad was able to get the bike trail groomer down Shannon ridge yesterday, it has a couple of inches on it but felt firm underneath.

We’ve tried to keep the RH edge of 550 packed well from the top of the 580 trail up to the bench, from there the firmer line to ride is on the left from the gate to the Ridge trail. Lower parts of 550 and 550A might still be too soft, use good judgement please.

We’re trying to get a well packed rideable surface but we’re dealing with a massive amount of snow over the last 2 weeks and not enough laps on it yet to get it really packed down so bear with us.

If you love a challenging long ski Middle road is a great route, much more technical with harder climbs and downhills, 10 mile out and back from the 550 rd.