Pine Valley Park/Ski Area - Cloquet, MN

Atypically cold weather meant we didn't do the skijoring we'd planned on our brief visit to Cloquet (Duluth area, MN). Kateva stayed home and we visited a couple of local trails -- Snowflake Nordic Ski Center and Cloquet's almost secret Pine Valley Park/Ski Area.

Snowflake disappointed. It's a maze of interconnecting poorly marked trails, and although it's not cheap they had no attendant and no maps. I think it's really just for members these days.

Pine Valley is a gem though. There are 5k, 3.5k and 2k loops -- which sounds short but these are lovely trails and very well managed. There are also two amazing ski jumps -- we didn't know that and got the full surprise of the looming madness. Still in use -- I wonder how the city manages the insurance.

There's a bit of mystery about these trails. To find them you drive towards the arenas and keep going around the back. It's as though the locals want to keep 'em quiet.

The trails are on 'Olympic drive'. I couldn't find any explanation of how these trails were built, but I wonder if they and the nearby arenas had 1980 winter olympics funding.

Skijoring near Duluth - Update

Snowflake Nordic Ski Center

Snowflake Nordic Ski Center does have skijoring, but only for “members” who have signed up for a season pass -- about $180 for a family.

Jay Cooke State Park

Jay Cooke state park has a skijoring trail (confirmed by park email, not publicized), but it was damaged by flooding; it should reopen in mid to late 2014. Jay Cooke also has fat bike trails, but they don't appear on the current map. The park doesn't allow skijoring on the fat bike trails. (BTW, Itasca officially supports skijoring -- but park lodging doesn't allow dogs. Bit of a nasty trick there.)

Millennium Trail Region - Superior Wisconsin - Superior Municipal Forest Multiuse Trail System

• Trailhead with Parking available at the Superior Municipal Forest trail head at 28th Street/Wyoming Avenue
• Trails: 26 kilometers—beginning to advanced
• Hours: Daily 8:00 am - 4:30 pm (Trails are not lighted)
• Skijoring portion on 5-mile portion of the Orange Trail on Chase's Point (shared with snowmobiles/ATVs). see also: Proposed use map 
• Trails are tracked and groomed seven days a week, weather permitting, for both skate and classic skiing.
• Daily use: $5, 15 and under free

Nanabush trail

 

A north of Duluth in Normana Township. Based on some hints and limited maps I think there is an entrance near here:

Endurance Kennels, LLC
6838 Pequaywan Lake Rd
Duluth, MN 55803

Others

• Boulder lake area: This page has details ...
• Dog Owners and Skijorers: We welcome you and your dog to the Boulder Lake trails on Thursday's and Sundays. ... alternate location to ski with your dogs would be the Buzz Ryan Road, an ungroomed forest management road on the northeast side of the Boulder Lake Management Area, accessed via Highway 4.
• The ski area is located beyond Snowflake on Highway 4 (commonly known as the Rice Lake Road or Rudy Perpich Memorial Highway) which leads to Ely, Minnesota.
• Munger trail near Munger Inn: Duluth Western Hillside Trails are not groomed. This web page has one of the best lists of regional trails, a photo shows skijoring on the western waterfront trail.
• Island Lake (maybe?)

See also:

• Duluth XC Ski trails
• Midwest Skijorers: Skijor friendly trails
• Duluth Trail list

Skijoring in Iron County Michigan and the Keweenaw: ABR Trails, the Mecca Ski Club and the KNSC Maasta Hiihto & Churning Rapids trails

Iron County falls within Lake Superior's snowbelt; once a reliable snow source. It's not what it once was, but when we visited it was working. The ABR Trails were excellent, though a week ago they'd been lousy.

There are at least two significant dog-friendly ski trails in Iron County, and a couple further west.

The ABR Trails are a commercial system about four miles south of Ironwood. The 70K+ trail system includes about 6 k of dog trails - Rascals Revenge, Spanky's Spill and Rudy's Shoot. We did them with our 3 kids and Kateva. The trails are labeled as “Expert", I'd call them "Eastern Intermediate". They are fully groomed for classic and skating. ABR charges $12 an adult, no fee for dogs.

The SkiMECCA trails is about 30 min south of Ironwood:

The MECCA Cross-Country Ski Trails are located in the town of Mercer, Wisconsin.  They run across a combination of State, County, Town, and private lands.  There are approximately 18 Km of trails groomed for classic and/or skate skiing.  Trails are groomed by volunteers, as conditions allow.  Hiking, snowshoeing, and dogs are allowed only on the untracked portions of the trails...

… The daily trail-use donation suggestions are $8 per adult, $5 per child, $1 per dog, or $20 for however many people you have in your car.

From the trail map I see that "untracked" means ungroomed or groomed for skating. That's quite a bit of this club maintained trail system.

Iron County has several other trails that may allow dogs. Twenty five years ago Porcupine State Park tolerated dogs on many trails, though that may have changed. The Uller and Montreal trails are remote and local practice may or may not allow dogs -- I haven't inquired.

Two hours further west in the Keeweenaw Swedetown does not allow any skijoring -- even on snowshoe trails. Happily, a reliable local source tells me dogs are toleratored or welcome on many Maasto Hiihto trails. The joy of these systems is that they welcome snowshoeing alongside the tracks, and apparently dogs fall into the same category:

Keweenaw Nordic Ski Club (KNSC)

Maasto Hiihto, which means “cross country skiing” in Finnish, is a striding-only trail system that offers kilometer after kilometer of unsurpassed skiing on varied and scenic trails. The trail system connects with the Churning Rapids trails. The two systems contain about 25 kilometers of groomed trails (see the trail map for details)

Snowshoeing is encouraged; there are many single track trails to follow, or on the side of the ski trails, as long as snowshoes do not step on set ski tracks.

The scenery on these trails is exceptionally varied and often breathtaking. Highlights include vistas of Portage Lake, Ruby Marsh, Swedetown Creek, mature forests, and pleasant meadows.

Two trailheads provide access to Maasto Hiihto: one at the Chalet on the Houghton County fairgrounds, and the other at Tomasi Road near the Hancock city garage, north of Portage Health.

The noble KNSC periodically hosts a moonlight ski and bonfire starting at the Thomasi trail head and going to the "triangle," for a fire and roasted weenies. This is a 1st class organization! We haven't made it there yet but it's on our radar.

Update 1/21/2013:

The Wolverine Ski Club maintains a trail system that can be joined at the top of the Powderhorn Alpine resort or from parking near Ironwood.  A club spokesman tells me skijoring is fine on the snowshoe trail and “skijoring wouldn’t work on the Wolverine Trails during the popular times of day, but all of them are suitable during off peak hours, ie early morning or after 4 most days.".

Update 12/30/2015: More on Churning Rapids, Maasto Hiihto

This year my family is planning a late January visit to the Keweenaw. In the post-snow era it may be our last best hope for Nordic skiing.

Since I first published this post there’s now a dog-friendly segment of the Swedetown trails, but more importantly the very extensive, single track only, Churning Rapids, Maasto Hiihto are all open to dogs. Here’s the word on CR/MH from an insider, edited slightly. He was responding to my questions, but you can pretty much guess the questions from the responses so I’ll omit them:

1. Dogs are welcome at MH/CR, in harness, on lead, or free roaming but in control. Dog tracks in ski tracks are inevitable, go to a no-dogs trail if you can't handle it  
2. Poop tossed in woods is fine  
3. Dog etiquette - snarly dogs not appreciated  
4. Christensen trail head has plowed parking for 3-4 cars but better roads to Tomasi or Chalet trailheads and loads of plowed parking and probably less drive time.  
5. 4WD not need at parking lots as they are flat

He added some comments about other trails nearby:

6. MTU has one 1.5K wide ski trail great for ski-joring and another 7K of nice but not challenging single track where dogs are allowed. Tech posts that dogs must be leashed and I have occasionally seen a dog or two leashed. Foot traffic is allowed on those trails also but does not create any problem.
7. Last winter Swedetown's dog trail was terrible and short. I've been told it will improve this year; we'll see.
8. CR has some bc skiing, especially the bike trails but they aren't marked for winter use (ie infrequent trail blazes/markers if any except at intersections) and can be a challenge but I say go for it - you'll never get lost, just turn around and follow your trail back to the van (don't get lost in a storm, this doesn't work)  
9. Not sure about Copper Harbor trails and dogs  
10. Eagle Harbor has some nice trails and say nothing about dogs in the past. I take my dog on them as does a friend.

I’m quite excited about this trip. We’ll be making a generous donation at the trailhead of course.

William O'Brien State Park: Skijoring and family skiing

It's only documented in a sign posted on the park trail [2], but William O'Brien State Park (Google map - parking) has a skijoring trail.

That's not quite the only documentation in truth. If you phone the recording mentions a hiking/snowshoe trail that allows dogs. That's the trail we took on a cold January 1, and we had an excellent time.

The trail is mostly flat but there's an intermediate style descent down the broad closed-for-winter access road. Our daughter walked part of it, but she could have easily snow plowed it. Towards the bottom of the road is the hiking trail we followed, here it's shown on a part of the PDF map:

Starting from the lodge follow the trail to the winter-closed road, ski down it looking for the hiking trail sign. Take the trail as shown here; it returns to the road. If the kids are tired take a shortcut back from the Riverside Group Camp site.

This is a multi-use trail with a lot of walkers, dogs and snowshoe use. In places it is quite packed down, but we really didn't have much trouble skiing it. There's usually softer snow and/or ski tracks at the trail margins. There's quite a bit of dog poop at the start (sigh! We carry our stuff out) but not further down.

The somewhat dull terrain is offset by lovely river views and pretty woods.

The park requires a DNR ski pass; we have two we bought online for the season. [1]

There are extensive groomed trails dogs can't go on, we hope to visit those soon. There are also fairly extensive hiking/snowshoe trails south of the park off Broadway avenue. We didn't visit those and don't know if they allow skijoring but I think they do. Call the park first to be sure. (See update below.)

 - fn -

[1]  The purchase process is awkward. I asked and was told they're going to try to get approval to store a PDF of the pass on smartphones to make it easier to carry.

[2] As of Jan 2014 this appears on the park map as well.

See also

• William O'Brien State Park: Minnesota DNR
• Skinnyski.com: Trail Reports - William O'Brien State Park

Update Jan 20, 2014

After another great skijoring outing on the short but fun hiking trail, we did some exploring of the mystery loop that shows on the William O'Brian map:

I was told by the Park ranger that this is a new acquisition that they haven't sorted out yet. As of Jan 2014 it's a hiking/snowshoe trail and we can skijor it. (Alas, that will probably change.)

It's hard to find. The "Broadway Ave" on the map is called "Maple" avenue where it meets 95 - directly east of the main entrance to Marine on St. Croix. (Maple is main street of Marine). Watch for signs for "Route 4", follow those through railway tunnel then look for parking on right. Today it was not plowed, only Subarus were parked. The lot is used for access to the Prairie Overlook Trail, but if you park there and walk a few meters west you can see a gate and a steep entrance to the hiking trails:

This isn't what most people want for skijoring, but it's awesome for us -- just what we love to ski. Looks like steep terrain, so be prepared to be good or to walk a bit. Trails are obviously well used and likely easy to navigate.

There's another entrance to the south off Broadway, but there's nowhere to park there.

If you go call ahead and ask if the lot is clear. If not you'll need a Subaru or equivalent -- or some shovels.

Update 2/17/14: We skied the Mystery trail today with Kateva, the skijor dog. It was horrible. Don't go there. Forget you ever heard about it. Bleak, dismal - it will drive you to drink. Just move along now...

Ok, I can't do it. I should, but I can't. It was the most fun we've had on a trail in years. Absolutely beautiful; though probably for intermediate skiers. My kids had no problems at all. Ungroomed of course, but on a snowy day just fabulous. We'll be back.

Cross-country skiing and skijoring: Minnesota DNR excels

There's something special about the Minnesota DNR. Wisconsin can't compare.

Three pages deserve particular attention

• Cross-country skiing: Minnesota DNR - classifies trails by use, nice event list.
• Snow Conditions/Snow Reports/Snow Depth: Minnesota DNR (good complement to skinnyski trail reports)
• Skijoring: Minnesota DNR (officially approved trails are pretty remote from MSP, but many parks have trails that can be used at some times of year - call ahead. Snowmobiling trails may be available, but of course they come with snowmobiles.)

See also:

• MSP Trails - Twin Cities Bike, Ski and Skate: Skijoring in Minnesota: Itasca, Nerstrand

Lebanon Hills Mountain Biking

The Lebanon Hills trails are the crown jewels of MSP mountain biking. They are also, unsurprisingly, insanely popular.

References:

• MORC Maps for Lebanon Hills
• Official site (slow to spin up as of 11/2012) and The official Map - pdf 2012
• The official trail descriptions: print them out and study them.
• Overview of the massive park system: MSP Trails - Twin Cities Bike, Ski and Skate: Lebanon Hills Regional Park

I've taken the kids there twice. Google doesn't seem to know where the trailhead is yet (I submitted an addition), but this link will take you to the West Trailhead and the Skills Park (Cliff road, Johny Cake, look for entrance).

The only negative of this astounding trail system is the traffic. The lot is usually full, and fast riders come from as far as Mankato and Rochester.  There is currently a problem with the novice trails - they get a lot of traffic from racers aiming for the faster trails. I'd like to see a way to either educate these riders to go extremely slowly on the green trails or to encourage them to bypass the novice trails. The press of fast riders can really discourage novice riders, esp. kids.

Otherwise my 10 yo daughter, who is far from bold, did very well on the Novice trail. She was anxious the first time and confident the second.

My 15yo hammered the blue trails, but we stayed away from the black and red. I have a hard fork bike (only one there!) and I suspect you want at least front suspension for the expert loops.

Theodore Wirth Park Mountain bike: The South Trail System (Enchanted Forest)

Theodore Wirth Mountain Biking trails are maintained by MOCA TRAILS. The kids and I rode the smaller south system, as shown on the MOCA map below.

For us, it was a poor choice. There is a 'novice' loop, but it's very short. The rest of the trail is not only intermediate+, but also quite short. Most of the trails are in the northern loop, but that has no novice trails I know of. We didn't visit it.

MOCA works hard to protect trails, but that means they can be unexpectedly closed -- even when conditions seem ideal. If you're going to visit this site, check trail status first by visiting the mocatrails.org site and looking for the trail condition icon on the main page.