We rode out on the North Shore State Trail today (Sunday, January 18th) and although it has not been groomed it was still in okay shape from the Gravel Pit near Duluth to the first Two Harbors Spur trail, then it got a little sketchy.  Basically, that’s the MO for the rest of the trail to about 20 miles past Finland where the groomer has actually hit things from there all the way to Grand Marais.  The good news is that Finland onward picked up more snow this weekend and we are hoping they can run the groomer even farther south mid week.  The bad news is we need more snow from Duluth to Finland.  We haven’t seen any GIA trails open in the Duluth area and most of them need a good storm to be able to groom.  Things on high ground aren’t so bad but any trail running through a swamp is in desperate need of a storm.  The word of the day is this: The farther north you trailer your sleds the better off you are.