News

Happy Juneuary,

Well after a week of 50 degree temps, The trails have taken a bit of a hit, although it could be worse. This season has set a very low bar...

The Highway was re-groomed, with new classic track and double-width skate lanes. The only bummer is the amount of dog poop scattered across the trail. Worse than that, is that some of it has been bagged, and then forgotten. Dog owners, PLEASE pick up after your dogs. Carry a scoop and pitch it off into the trees.

Moose Flats got a touch up. We concentrated more on filling in bare spots than leaving a great finished product, but its not bad.

Race Park has lots of thin/ bare spots and the hill down to the highway is sketchy. We closed it off with lathe. Its not worth skiing and not that safe.

Barn road and Crow Creek are thin but skiable, we did not re groom them.

We closed Middle Fork from the bottom. We need long, sustained cold temps and lots of snow to reopen. it. You can ski it form the top, but don't go down into the bottom along the creek. Lots of open water.

If you decide to ski across the river, its best to walk down the hill and across the bridge and up the far side hill.  Penny's and Haul Road are actually pretty good, Becker's is super thin. Outlaw is decent but not re-groomed. 

We need some Winter. If anyone has any connections, now would be a good time to call in a favor!

This week's storms brought 6-7" of new snow at Pahaska, and 10+" at the East Entrance. This allowed the groomers to get on all the trails, and either roll and pack, or in most cases, level the trails and set track and skate lanes. It really feels like winter now, although there are still early season, thin conditions in many places, so ski with caution.

Here's the rundown:

Moose Flats, Crow Creek Loop, Barn Road and Race Park all have classic track and skate lanes. There's a few thin spots in the tracks in each area, so be on the lookout for them. Otherwise, they are skiing great.

The Highway is great; double-width skate lanes and classic track set to the east Gate. It looked like the Park Service was getting ready to groom, but I cannot confirm, there's only one way to know...

Middle Fork: the top 3/4 of the trail is awesome, with classic and skate lanes, however the persistent problem of a thawed, overflowing frog pond crossing the trail in 3 spots has made the bottom portion unskiable without hip waders. Its best to access MF from the top and ski it both ways, or climb out at the guardrail before the trail drops down along the creek. 

Haul Road, Penny's, and Outlaw are all good. Haul Road is groomed all the way to Sleeping Giant. Becker's is thin with intermittent track, keep an eye out for debris and hazards. 

The SG East and Canfield Trails were rolled, but they aren't ready for prime time yet.

The Dog Trails East of the Highway Bridge were rolled and should be decent for skiing without tracks.

The First Nordic Kids program starts tomorrow at 10AM, so look for a bunch of wigglers on skis.

The forecast for next week continues to call for warm temps, so lets hope our trails hold up until the next storm cycle comes around. Keep doing your snow dances!

6" of snow from yesterday's storm are helping to get the ski trails into shape again. The Highway is in great shape, with classic track and skate lanes to the YNP gate. The  Park Service also groomed yesterday, but the tracks are likely already covered. Nevertheless, the skiing into the park is really good.

Moose flats was leveled and some track was set, along with Crow Creek Loop. Its still a little thin, so ski with caution. The recent rains have recharged springs that are normally dry/ frozen this time of year, so they have flowed across the trail in a few spots. The cold snap last night should help to firm them up. 

Everyone has asked about Middle Fork: There are a handful of seasonal creeks that cross the trail that were flowing too much to set trail on. They should be frozen after last night, so we will try to get something done on it today. 

The next week will see warm temps again. Luckily, it will get cold each night so the trails shouldn't take too much of a hit if they don't get a lot of sun.

A friendly reminder to pick up after your dogs on the highway. At the very least, throw it over the guard rail. 

Enjoy the last days of 2025 and Happy New Year!

See you on the trails!

Happy Winter Solstice,

We apologize for the radio silence lately. The fact is, there wasn't much to report, or at least nothing good... Two weeks of Chinook winds and inches of rain obliterated our  24" snow pack and left us with an ice slick and ruts, not much fun to ski on. However, the storm and drops in temperatures left us optimistic, so we headed up top Pahaska to see what we could see:

The Good- We were able to tiptoe the Cat up the highway and despite only having a few inches of coverage, lay down a pretty good skate lane. There's also classic track that starts about a hundred yard up the first hill. Everything is firm and fast, with transformed snow. Also, the Park service groomed inside the East Gate, so there should be decent skiing for the next day or so. 

Also, we rolled down the Middle Fork from the top to where the trail drops down along creek level. Below that, the frog ponds still have open water, so the trail sort of dead-ends, but you can get your Middle Fork Fix going down from the top and then back up.

The Bad- Nothing else is really skiable, unless you have skis you don't like and don't mind throwing yourself of the trail to stop.  Also, we will likely get some of the incoming precipitation as rain, as the temps for the coming week look absurdly warm for Christmas. Santa will need water skis at this rate. Things look to cool off by the end of the year, so lets hope we can start off 2026 with skiable trails!  

Merry Christmas, and do your snow dances!

It finally snowed!  And it's making up for lost time!  Around 18-20" at Pahaska, and at least 24" at the YNP line have officially opened the season. 

The groomers went up early this morning and started packing it all down. Its humid, cold snow, so it should really set up and make a firm base. This is good, because the weather next week is moving back into a warm, (maybe rainy) pattern, so durability is key. 

Groomed:

The highway has been groomed to the YNP line, with track and skate lanes.

Moose Flats, Crow Creek, Barn Road, Race Flats, (the hill down onto the highway was not groomed yet). Early season conditions exist, ski with caution!

Rolled: Middle Fork, Some of the South Trails

Not Groomed:

Outlaw, Becker's, Haul Road, Penny's, or the SG East Trails, (Granny's, Canfield, Powerline). The Dog Trails have also not been hit yet

What's coming:

As mentioned earlier, the upcoming week looks warm. We will likely hold off of more grooming until the temps cool off, otherwise we do more damage than good. The Highway should be Great skiing. 

The bears are still out. Lots of tracks this morning. Ski with someone slower than you and it shouldn't be a problem...

see you on the trails, 

The Groomers

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!