News

Well... First the good news. With the six inches of snow that fell at Pahaska, were able to extend the grooming season another week!

The less good news, Its not going to stay groomed for long. Snow forecasts have increased in the last day and now it looks like We may get another 2-4" over the weekend, along with some wind, so go enjoy it while it lasts.

It's been a great season, and this extra snow is always welcome. And although we don't intend to groom anymore, this snow will set up into a nice crust and provide excellent spring skiing. In the meantime, the touring on wider skis will be exceptional and the trails still have great coverage. There are some thin spots and places where the trail narrows, so keep an eye out.

A couple of things to note:

Bears could be out anytime now, so plan accordingly.

We will begin pulling signage next week and plan to remove the bridge over the middle fork sometime the first week of April.  After that, if you plan to ski on the South side trails, (which hold snow longer as they are North-facing), you'll need to access them via the Sleeping Giant Parking Lot. Also, the Portia-potties will be pulled the first week of April, so you'll have to do what the bears do...

See you on the trails,

The Groomers

The groomers went up today to refresh the trails for the weekend,and all things considered, the trails are in great shape, but they are on borrowed time.

The highway to the East Entrance is still in fantastic shape, with classic track and full skate lanes reset.

Moose Flats, Crow Creek, Barn Road and Race Park are still pretty good; there's a few tree wells that have melted out and narrowed the trail but all in all they still quite intact and great skiing. They were too firm to reset classic track, but the skate lanes are in fine shape.

The Hill from race park to the Highway is done for the season, as is Jackson Hill, the top trail in Race Park. Don't try it unless you have skis you don't like.

Middle fork is good up high, (skate lanes are reset) until the frog pond area at the bottom, which is getting melted out. Its best to ski it from the bottom to the top so you don't get too much speed and hit a dirt patch, unless you're into that sort of thing...

All the South Trails; Outlaw, Penny's, Haul Road and Becker's are in great shape with fresh classic track and skate lanes. Beware of one melt out at the East end of Becker's.

Trails east of Sleeping Giant are really good, with a couple of sunny corners that are melted out, Fresh classic and skate lanes out there too.

We haven's seen any bear activity yet, but it will be any day now. You may want to bring bear spray along.

The East gate is officially closed for winter travel, and plowing will start in the coming weeks, although it will be a while before they make it out of the park.

This may be our final weekend of grooming for the season, unless the storms next week bring more snow. The skiing is still great, so enjoy the last of it!

No new snow from the recent storm that just moved through.  The conditions are fast and firm until 1PM and then start to get slow.  The groomers reset skate lanes on all the trails and classic track on all the North-side trails and the Highway, with varying degrees of success.  Its full-on crust season already, which makes the whole forest a groomed playground, just get out there early.

We are starting to see some melt out under trees and on south-facing slopes. It doesn't look like much snow is in the forecast, so I'd bet we have another week of good skiing on all the trails before we start losing connector trails between the highway, North and south sides.  Its great spring sking, enjoy!

It's been a busy few weeks at Pahaska!

Lots of new snow, lots of grooming and a few big events all made it hard for me to give accurate grooming reports, but here we are in a big mid-winter melt, after a long spell of snow and cold weather.

Recent happenings:

Pahaska has received well over 3 feet of new snow since the last report. This has come in almost daily storms. Due to a classic inversion weather pattern, it never did get as cold as the temps in town. 

Speaking of town, we groomed Mentock Park and the Paul Stock Trail system! The last time we had decent, groomed skiing in town was 2019, so it was a treat to get some time on skis without an hour-long drive. Lets hope that trend continues in future winters.

The Cody High school and Middle school Nordic Teams hosted their home Invitational ski races on Feb 14-15. Around 200 kids raced on what are arguably the most scenic trails in the state!

The 13th(??) Annual Taste of the Trails event was held on Saturday, Feb 22. This years' conditions were the complete opposite of last year, when the groomers actually hauled snow ON to the trails to complete a course. 

The big warm up will be with us for another week. Luckily, the forecast doesn't look quite as warm as in town and night time temps will keep the trails from taking too much of a hit. Nevertheless, If you ski, plan to go in the morning, between really firm and slush... Looks like we will drop back down to seasonal temperatures in early March. The groomers will attempt to keep the  trails from getting too icy or rutted for the weekend.

March 1st is the last day of the 2025 Nordic Kids season! They can look forward to more fun and games, roasting hot dogs and maybe a Gelande jump...

That's all for now, I will try to post any updates for the weekend.

Tye groomers went up Thursday and packed down all the new snow from earlier in the week. Due to an inversion, the temps never dropped down to the lows that town had. Actually, they were very warm; 44 on Tuesday. The 24" of snow that fell, settled down and dried out to around 10-12". It actually groomed up nicely. However, the conditions wont last long. Pahaska is set to receive another 8-10" today and tonight, (Friday).

We are headed up today to knock down what we can and get it as close to groomed as possible for the weekend.  We wont be grooming over the weekend, so this will have to work. There may be another inch or two that falls on top but a little cream on top of the trails can be a lovely ski experience.

Stay tuned for our report after we've been up to see how much we have,

Also, if you don't want to make the trip to Pahaska, we groomed a skate lane around the perimeter of Mentock Park. If time allows, we have clearance to groom the Paul Stock trails as well.  Enjoy the snowy day in town!

Happy Groundhog Day, (a day late...), very appropriate as  it felt like Groundhog day all weekend as the groomers worked to stay ahead of some of the atmospheric river that is is currently streaming over our region.

Friday morning only offered a couple of new inches of snow since the prior week and we were able to groom the entire trail system. Incidentally, the skiing was awesome!  We picked up a few more inches overnight and through the day Saturday. We groomed the North Side trails Saturday AM as well as Middle Fork, Outlaw Trail and The Haul Road.

Sunday morning revealed another 8-10". We groomed the North Side trails, Middle Fork, Becker's and Haul Road, although the snow picked up through the day and obliterated any semblance of groomed trails. It sounds like another 12" since Sunday night, with snow forecast all week long!

Due to a textbook weather inversion, it is positively balmy at Pahaska compared to the single digit temps in town.  This has yielded a bunch of snow, but it is extremely wet and settles down quickly, making it hard to know just how much snow we have received.  It is also nearly impossible to groom until the temperatures go down to the teens at night and the snow dries out.

So, here's the plan: the groomers will head up Wednesday and pack the trails. Then we will head up again Thursday or Friday and groom for the weekend. So, If you're planning to ski mid-week, it will be more adventure-skiing rather than groomed track.  The scenery will remain amazing. 

Lots of evidence of dogs on the trails... Please, do us the courtesy of using ONLY the Highway or the Dog trails, East of the Highway Bridge. I skied them with my own dog on Saturday and they were really fun!

More updates as we work on packing down all this new snow!

Just a quick note to say that I went up to Pahaska today to repair the Cat, which had some sheared bolts. After the repair, the temps were still cool, so I took it across the river and groomed all the trails on the South side, including the short loop on the SG east trails. 

Remember, the best skiing will be before noon, after that, the snow will get soft and sticky if you haven't waxed your skis recently.  Lots of warm temps this week, but it looks like snow is in the forecast for the weekend!

Some days don't go as planned. The groomers had more than their share of mechanical issues, which took most of the day to resolve and rendered the cat inoperable. Nevertheless, we were able to groom most of the trails with the snowmobiles. They had inconsistent results setting fresh track due to the firm base on the trails, but the skate lanes turned out nice. After a while, we just gave up trying to reset track and left the old track from last week, which was arguably better anyway.  With only an inch of new snow, even trails which did not get groomed should ski pretty well.

Trails groomed:

Moose Flats, Crow Creek, Barn Road, Race Park, Middle Fork, Haul Road, SG East and Canfield Loop. Also the Highway to the East Gate

Trails Not groomed:

Becker's, Penny's, Outlaw, Dog Trails.

The weekend forecast looks cool, with good ski temps, but all mid week temps look to be unseasonably warm. This is a bummer because we don't actually have that much snow on the ground. Please help us to preserve our trails by avoiding skiing and snowshoeing in the warmest parts of the day... if you're leaving slushy ruts or big divots, they are hard to remove without more snow, especially without the use of the Cat. Also the skiing is better when its cool!

The following weekend looks more promising, just in time for the Nordic Kids  clinics, so keep doing your snow dances, or putting an angel in the freezer, or drink Hamm's, whatever you do to appease the Snow Gods.

see you on the Trails!

The storm system that swept through the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has deposited 8-10" of snow over the last week. The Groomers have been out regularly, packing, profiling and leveling the trails. We are pleased to report that nearly every trail is open and skiing well.  Having said this, its always important to remember that thin spots and hazards exist throughout, particularly in the tracks, so keep a sharp eye out for them. 

Trails in great shape: Moose Flats, Crow Creek, Barn Road, Middle Fork, Outlaw, Penny's, and the Road to the East Entrance.

Trails that are groomed but have thin spots: Race Park, Becker's, Haul Road, Sleeping Giant Trails. The Far East loop has been packed but will need another grooming lap before we debut it.

Yellowstone Park is currently closed due to avalanche danger from  the recent storm, but once its open, the Park Service  will re-groom the road to the Windy Point Outhouse.

We've started marking out the Dog trails, but it will take more snow to get them ski-able.

Due to the slow start to the season, we have had a preponderance of hikers on the trails. Now that everything is groomed, we ask that anyone on the trails be on skis or snowshoes, and to pass the word along to anyone you may encounter on foot.

Happy New Year!

The Groomers

Happy Fall!

We are excited to announce that we have started rolling trails and beginning the snow packing process!  All the trials North of Pahaska, (Moose Flats, Crow Creek, Race Park) and the Middle Fork Trail have been rolled. I would not say they are "skiable" yet, although if you have an old pair of skis you don't care about, you'd certainly be able to do some gliding. Keep a watchful eye out for rocks and other hazards sticking up out of the snow. All the trails were mowed this Fall, so it wont take too much snow to provide adequate coverage, but we are still a storm or two away from declaring the trails "open". 

We are waiting on more snow to get across the bridge to begin rolling the South side trails.

For some reason the Highway was plowed up to the East Entrance. There is still a 8' wide swath of snow on either side that is skiable, but we are waiting on more to actually build the trail along the south side.

Finally, The Forest Service has finished burning slash plies around Pahaska. They cleaned up nicely and should not be an issue this season. The piles on the East side of the river near the dog trails will be burned after Thanksgiving.

It Looks like a drop in temps coming at the end of the Month, so everybody do your snow dances and burn off that turkey and pumpkin pie!

The Groomers