A little bit of snow and a little bit of cold weather has the entire Northeast Minnesota snowmobile trail system in really nice shape.  Most of the wet areas have finally firmed up and ice thickness is improving on the lakes and ponds.  The North Shore of Lake Superior has been hit especially hard with various amounts of Lake Effect snow over the past week, putting snow depth over 2 feet along half of the trail system and allowing the groomers to lay down a very nice trail.  We are also supposed to pick up a few inches of fresh snow Friday Night so the trails will be really fun Saturday morning.  It is supposed to be really cold for the weekend so dress warm.  Also as the John Beargrease sled dog marathon approaches riders are encouraged to slow down and keep an eye out for dog teams out training, especially on the CJ Ramstad North Shore State Trail.  Please remember that the our sport has its roots in the desire of inventors to create a motorized dog sled, in fact the first Ski-Doo was originally supposed to be called the “Ski-Dog” and was billed in their sales literature as “The Motorized Dog Team,” the prevailing theory is that they were having a hard time making the “g” look right on the V shaped logo and the artist just decided to change the “g” to another “o” and the Ski-Doo was born.  In any case let’s be aware of our furry friends out there, we don’t want a repeat of what happened in Wisconsin a few weeks ago.  Ride Safe, Ride Right, Keep Warm and we will see you out on the trail!