Nordic Skiing is normally considered an eco-friendly sport, northeast Minnesota’s Gunflint Nordic ski trail managers have taken this one step further. The Central and Upper Gunflint Ski Areas connected by the Banadad Ski Trail known collectively as the 210 Kilometer Gunflint Nordic Ski System this year went carbon neutral.
The trail managers calculation the cost of sequestering the carbon emissions produced from the maintenance and grooming of the trails based on information from the Chicago Climate Exchange, “Regional Estimates of TreeAnnual Carbon Accumulation,” and the Gunflint Ranger District, USFS tree plant cost estimates.
Then, yesterday, May 5, at the Gunflint Trail Association’s Spring Meeting ski trail representatives presented a $896 “carbon off-set” check to Nancy Seaton, Gunflint Green Up chairman, The money will be used as seed money for next year’s tree planting. Since the Gunflint Trail’s 2007 Ham Lake Fire, the Gunflint Green Up has annually purchased young trees and organized volunteers to plant the trees. To date the Green Up has planted over 100,000 new trees in the area burned over by the Fire.
According to Ted Young, Banadad Trail manager, “It was a great snow year for the Gunflint’s ski trails. That translated into lots of grooming hours. And as a result we put lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere- by our calculation the maintenance and grooming of the Gunflint’s three ski systems created some fifteen metric tons of CO2. We feel that offsetting this carbon by planting trees in our neighborhood, to us, is the right thing to do for the Gunflint and our environment.”
Resorts participating in Gunflint Nordic Ski Trail’s Carbon Off-set project are Gunflint Pines, Hestons and Gunflint from the Upper Gunflint Trails: Boundary Country Trekking from the Banadad and Bearskin from the Central Gunflint Trails. Golden Eagle Lodge, that maintains half of the Central Gunflint Trail offset the carbon their maintenance and grooming created by planting trees on their own property.
Note- Attached image- Left to Right Ted Young, Boundary Country Trekking, Nancy Seaton, Gunflint Green Up Chairperson, Dennis Neitzke, Gunflint Ranger USFS, Shari Baker Gunflint Pines Resort, and Sue McCloughan, Bearskin Lodge.
In the mid-Gunflint Area from the “Pines” to about Gunflint Lake winter still lingers on in the shady spot and in the woods where continues snow from one to two feet remain. Along the Banadad Ski Trail the ski conditions are still great with bare spots only in sunny open areas. Once you get much past the South Gunflint Lake Road where the Ham Lake Fire took place conditions change drastically. Here must of the snow is gone- must likely due to the lack of shad in this area’s burned over forest. Also, as it usually happens, the upper Gunflint area again this winter received a bit less snow then the mid Gunflint, which may have helped it to melt faster.
Temperature are hovering in the 30s to 40s.
Labels: Snow Report
You do not have to stop skiing just because it is spring. Long ago "local" skiers have learned to taken advantage of the hard crust formed on the snow by the alternating freezing and thawing that occurs in the spring. "Crust skiing," as it called enable you to skate off-trail deep into the Boundary Waters and other places inaccessible during the winter. Then there is the Banadad, perhaps, the last remaining trail in the state to close for the season. Protected from the warming spring sun by its east west orientation, the heavy forest shading along the trail and the use of light grooming equipment, the Banadad normally is still ski able through at least the first week in April and often longer.
Whether you want to try the fun of crust skiing or another tracked ski along the Banadad, spring skiing on the Gunflint is the place to come!
Banadad –31 km- January 19.
Lace Lake –5 km – January 20
Knapp-3 km- December 30
Tall Pines (Westside) 1 km -December 29
Banadad –31 km-12/29
Lace Lake –5 km – 12/30
Knapp-3 km- 12/30/08
Tall Pines (Westside) 1 km - 12/29
