Trail Conditions
If you recently skied, please report the trail conditions. Thanks for supporting the ski community with your reporting and membership!
MadNorSki Trail Reports:
Near Madison
BlackHawk Ski Area (Back to Top)| Date | Condition | Style | By |
| December 17 2024 | Poor | Skate | M. Young |
| 🔗 | The rain over the last 3 days has taken a toll. Siberian Hwy is basically an ice rink. Several areas are showing dirt. Course appears to be in need of a good tilling with a PB. This afternoon’s ski was not fun. So far this winter is worse than last year. Hope it improves. Thanks for continuing to groom. | ||
Blue Mound SP (Back to Top)
| Date | Condition | Style | By |
| December 20 2024 | Good | Classic | Dave Grace |
| 🔗 | Full coverage, not bare spots and rolled. Only debris on the way down to the campground. No tracks but could use A skis. Get out while it lasts. | ||
| December 20 2024 | Fair | Skate and Classic | willi van haren |
| 🔗 | Staff has rolled the trails, thin of course but it's a start. After freezing tonight it could be fun. No tracks. | ||
CXC Outdoor Rec Center (Back to Top)
| Date | Condition | Style | By |
| December 20 2024 | Excellent | Skate | Brian Parks |
| 🔗 | Good grooming. Fresh snow is quite soft, but will set up nicely as the day continues and moves into the Winter Celebration weekend here starting tomorrow. All trails open. A bit thin in spots. But nothing serious. Best skiing of the season so far. Ullr is casting good cheer upon us! | ||
| December 20 2024 | Fair | Skate | Yuriy |
| 🔗 | Groomed golf course trails for skating. Fair conditions overall for the first snowfall—soft in most places with some snow drifts. Use rock skis or B-skis when skiing off the snowmaking loop. The deck should firm up today after a cold night. | ||
| December 20 2024 | Good | Skate and Classic | Yuriy |
| 🔗 | Groomed this morning for skating and classic on the snowmaking loop. | ||
| December 19 2024 | Good | Skate and Classic | Yuriy |
| 🔗 | Groomed the snowmaking loop for skating and classic skiing around 12 PM and will groom it again around 5 PM today for evening skiing. Snowmaking on the corner leading to the powerline has been completed. Additionally, we pushed snow to the top of the small hill in front of the parking lot, and groomed it for both skating and classic skiing. If the snowstorm gives us enough natural snow, we will groom additional trails tomorrow morning for skating. We plan to make more snow on Saturday and Sunday. | ||
| December 18 2024 | Good | Skate | Brian Parks |
| 🔗 | Trail is setting up well. No closures on the loop at present. Downhill turn by the mound is getting sketchy, but not bad yet. Enjoy and don’t forget the weekend celebration here this weekend. Come on out and help newbies with skiing while taking in the warmth of the fire pits. | ||
| December 18 2024 | Good | Skate and Classic | Yuriy |
| 🔗 | Groomed this morning for skating, with classic tracks in most areas. We have started spreading the snow we made last week. It’s very soft and will take some time to set-up. We plan to make more snow this week. Some sections of the trail may be closed. Please watch out for snowmaking equipment. | ||
Elver Park (Back to Top)
| Date | Condition | Style | By |
| December 20 2024 | Fair | Skate | Sarah Guillot |
| 🔗 | Thanks so much to the groomers! It's wonderful to be back skiing at Elver. I recommend rock skis, there's a lot of sticks coming through the snow and other debris in some areas. Other areas are nearly perfect. Worth getting out before next week's probable rain. | ||
| December 20 2024 | Fair | Skate | dick steinle |
| 🔗 | Brain T groomed west trails and I(Dick) groomed east trails skate only. not enough for tracks. thin base, use B ski's, both up hill climb on east trails out from the shelter are not groomed because of maintenance work in that area. | ||
| December 20 2024 | Fair | Skate | Luke Kubasta |
| 🔗 | I have not skied myself yet, but I heard secondhand that MadNorski groomed the west side this morning. Looks like some nice corduroy though I heard it’s a bit thin/soft as to be expected. Rock/B skis. Can’t wait to get out there! Thanks Brian Parks! | ||
Governor Nelson SP (Back to Top)
| Date | Condition | Style | By |
| December 20 2024 | Fair | Skate and Classic | Mike |
| 🔗 | Groomed Morningside, Red Hawk and Oak Savanna Trails. The Woodland trail was unable to be groomed at this time. Not enough snow to lay down any classic track. The surface is thin and delicate, but lots of people out skiing! | ||
| December 20 2024 | Good | Classic | LP |
| 🔗 | I skied self groomed trails on ample snow over grass mostly. Groomer had half the park rolled when I left at 10:30 am. Signage is improved and I saw evidence of snowshoer picking the path away from my tracks. No dog walkers …yet. | ||
Lodi Golf Course (Back to Top)
| Date | Condition | Style | By |
| December 20 2024 | Good | Skate | Tamara Bryant via Dale Fanney |
| 🔗 | Dale Fanney reports: The new snow was rolled last nite over the 5k course. Will groom this am and hopefully set track on the golf course loops. The field loops will be groomed for skating only. I would be hesitant to use A skis on the field loop- but the golfcourse will be 100% okay.. 3.3 K with "El Gonzo" added. | ||
McCarthy Park (Back to Top)
| Date | Condition | Style | By |
| December 20 2024 | Good | Skate | Dave H |
| 🔗 | We groomed mid-day. No tracks set. Drifting in some open areas. Soft, but ok coverage in most areas. Thin across marsh and in drifting areas. 60/40 good/fair. | ||
| December 20 2024 | Fair | Skate | Roger Goppelt |
| 🔗 | Skied just before groomer started to groom at 12:00. Hill by farm was great and teails around little and big woods good. Trails in big open fields were drifzed over partially. Trails near woods by parking lot were good except the top return part. I bet the grooming will hrlp. Some grass in open field teails but in tge woids, and big hillflat paet was good. Enjoy because they peedicts 40 by end of Dec. Thank you groomrr | ||
| December 20 2024 | Fair | Skate and Classic | McCarthy Park Grooming Staff |
| 🔗 | McCarthy park trails were rolled last evening, overnight we received 3" of new snow. We will be out today to re-roll and groom the trails. I don't think classic tracks are possible due to lack of base. Snowshoe trials will be marked and packed as well. I suspect soft conditions with some problem spots so bring your B ski's. All trail should be ready by noon today. | ||
| December 19 2024 | Poor | Skate and Classic | McCarthy Park Trail Groomers |
| 🔗 | Rolled the snow this evening, should be good enough to shuffle around with some old ski's. Going out again tomorrow morning to see what we can do. | ||
Odana Golf Course (Back to Top)
| Date | Condition | Style | By |
| December 20 2024 | Good | Classic | Matt W |
| 🔗 | Corduroy was nice and fast, no classic track yet and a few sticks, but great early skiing. Much better than my basement norditrack. | ||
University Ridge Golf Course (Back to Top)
| Date | Condition | Style | By |
| December 20 2024 | Good | Skate | University Ridge Staff |
| 🔗 | We were able to groom everything this morning and finished up around 10:15am. The trails set up ok for skate skiing as the coverage was very good on the Zimmer Loops and decent on Bucky's Pass. The snow was pretty soft. I would rate conditions "poor" for classic skiing. The snow was just not deep enough and grass was poking through in about 50% of the trails. University Ridge has scaled back the total number of kilometers of trails this year to provide better grooming on the 6K of trails that we have. To see a new map and pricing go to https://universityridge.com/cross-country-skiiing. We will be open today until 5pm and this weekend from 9-5pm on Saturday and Sunday. The plan is to groom again tomorrow morning. Please check in with the golf shop when you arrive. | ||
East of Madison
No recent reports found!
Just North of Madison
No recent reports found!
Other Locations
No recent reports found!
Other Sources:
SkinnySki.com has complete and up-to-date collection of trails for a wider region. We recommend reviewing their website – in particular the South West WI map and South East WI map.
Close to home, check-out the City of Madison Cross Country Ski page. Check grooming status and buy your annual pass online (for Elver and Odana).
Nordic Pulse has detailed grooming reports for some locations including the CXC Outdoor Center.
The Skiwise App includes some grooming and trail reports for ski trails in Wisconsin.