Lanesboro’s Hillcrest Hide-Away B&B invites you to enjoy our winter wonderland in Southeast Minnesota. The Root River State trail has a fresh blanket of snow and is groomed and ready for cross country skiing. Click here for current ski conditions.
Candlelight Ski on Root River Trail
Make plans now to join us for the Candlelight Ski and Bonfire on Saturday February 7th. Start at the Whalen Town Hall at dusk, ski for a mile by candlelight and warm yourself by the bonfire. Then ski back to Whalen for another bonfire and Homemade soups, sandwiches and hot beverages at the Whalen Town Hall. Skis can be rented at Cedar Valley Resort. Lanesboro’s downtown district will be candlelit at dusk where restaurants, shops and the Cornucopia Art Center await your visit.
By bct | December 30, 2008
Come join us at the Historic Afton House Inn for New Years Eve. Enjoy a deluxe room with jacuzzi and fireplace. You will want to dine at the Inn where we will have entertainment in the dining room. Party Favors and Champagne starting at 11:30. Enjoy tableside cooking and flaming steak diane and flaming banana’s flambe’ . Enjoy a wonderful getaway to start out the new year.
Stay a second night either before New Years or after and save 50% off your room stay when you reserve your night on New Years Eve.
Rooms include Champagne or Non-Alcholic Champagne for New Years Eve.
By bct | December 29, 2008
Gunflint Trail-With the temperature hovering above freezing on December 27, the ski conditions on the Banadad Ski Trail were not great, as Erik and Karl Hoeg became the first skier to complete the entire 31 kilometer Banadad non-stop this winter. The two boys time was about 4 hours. They both are very good skiers and they explained afterwards that had the ski conditions been better they certainly would have made the trip much faster. Their parents shuttled a car to the western end of the Banadad then skied in from the western trail head, about 7 kilometers, where they met-up-with Erik and Karl. The pair were staying at one of Poplar Creek Guesthouse B&B’s cabins with their parents.
Current ski conditions on the Gunflint Trail, with 20 inches of snow on the ground, are excellent.
Imagine - the smell of home made bread baking when you awake. Imagine – curling up to a good book next to a fireplace. Enjoy a hearty breakfast (that you don’t have to make or clean up) and then head out on miles of groomed cross country ski trails surrounded by the bluffs of the Root River valley.
Root River Trail
Lanesboro has a fresh blanket of snow. Only a little more than 2 hours southeast of St. Paul, the Root River State Trail is groomed and ready for use. Welcome in the New Year with us at the Hillcrest Hide-Away B&B . That home made bread mentioned earlier is delivered to your door when you get up along with coffee, or other hot beverages.
Lanesboro’s Old Village Hall restaurant offers special menus for every weekend in January. Visit their web site for more details.
Complete your visite with a horse drawn sleigh ride through our beautiful valley. Heavy lap blankets will keep you cozy as you listen to sleigh bells jingling. Glide through the fields and into the woods. The horses know the way back to town where a steaming cup of hot cocoa or cider awaits you! Check our web site for reduced winter rates and special winter packages.
You can check trail conditions online before your visit. Experience Lanesboro – the art of living well.
By bct | December 15, 2008
Grand Marais, MN- The cross-country skiing season has begun along Minnesota’s famed Gunflint Trail as the snow piles up- over nine new inches of snow fell yesterday. More is expected this week. With yesterday snowfall, area B&B and lodge owners along the Gunflint report eighteen to twenty inches of snow now on the ground.
Beginning in the village of Grand Marais, Minnesota, on Lake Superior’s North Shore, the Gunflint Trail is a paved pathway winding 60 miles through the Superior National Forest to Saganaga Lake on the Canadian border. In winter the lodge owners cooperatively operate the 216-kilometer Gunflint Nordic Ski Trail Network. This trail network consists of three interconnected ski trail areas; the Central and Upper Gunflint Trails connected by the Banadad. Both classic and skate skiing opportunities are offered amidst an unspoiled Northwoods wilderness backdrop.
According Ted Young from Poplar Creek Guesthouse B&B, which operates the Banadad Ski Trail, “we are grooming this end of the Banadad now and we should be completed tracking all our trails by the weekend. With this new snow skiing should be great!” Those responsible for the Central and Upper Gunflint Ski Trails expressed similar optimism.
.
Nordic Skiing is by definition an eco-friendly sport but the Gunflint area ski trail managers have taken this one step further. Last year, the Banadad Ski Trail became “carbon neutral” with the purchase of carbon credits to offset the emissions of grooming. This year, the Central and Upper Gunflint ski trail systems are adopting carbon neutral strategies. The cost to sequester the carbon released into the atmosphere from the maintenance and grooming for the Gunflint Nordic Ski Trails will be invested in planting of trees along the Gunflint Trail.
