Ski North Ultra 2026 Elspeth's Version

Last year was the inaugural Ski North Ultra. Erik really wanted to do this 100 km race but given we'd already signed up for The Great Bear Chase and single track sketchy downhills and route finding aren't my jam, I won out and we chased the bear. I've done some long stuff in the past, like the Chippewa Triathlon and the Canadian Ski Marathon, and it turns out I don't do well racing for hours at a time, especially if I can't find the route or if I'm sleep deprived. 

This year though I gave in. I planned on doing the 50 km; however, when I went to sign up there were only two options: 38 km or 100 km. I couldn't "only do" 38 km so against my better judgement, I registered for the 100 km and regretted it immediately.

I debated how specifically to train for the 100 km and then largely out of time, some cold weather, and less than ideal trail conditions, I didn't do much specific training. I figured any extra I skied would be good Birkie training. This did get me to do a 4 hour ski at Wirth and instead of skiing for 1-1.5 hours on week days, I logged 2 hour sessions. But that was it. My longest ski leading up to the race was the 53 km Birkie. Last year there were some significant route finding issues so I printed a bunch of maps and studied the course in detail, as I hadn't skied any of these trails previously. 

2026 Ski North Ultra map. 

 

This all leads up to race day. A couple weeks before the Ski North Ultra, the course got 1-2 feet of snow. It got warm a couple times, including most of the week before the race. Then it rained at least a quarter inch the day before. Fortunately the race wasn't that day because I have not figured out how to stay warm in a cold drizzle for more than an hour. But here was the kicker, overnight, it just might snow. There's also significant elevation change over the course, about 1,000 feet, and so it was possible it might rain by Lake Superior and snow up on the hills. Hmmmmm..... 

I planned to bring 3 pair of waxable skis to the race. Then based on grooming and snow conditions and road/river crossings, I made my plan of which skis I'd use when. But would it snow? How much? Would it be slushy or icy? The race started at 7 am (about the time the precip was predicted to stop) which didn't leave much time for kick waxing the morning of, much less 3 pairs. The sun was supposed to come out around 10 am, then it was 11 am, then the last forecast I last saw said noon. With some time to kill the day before and only 0.1 inches of snow predicted, I betted on ice and went for Purple Oslo for my middle skis and some warm START Terva hard wax for my third pair. Now I had two pairs that could ice and couldn't afford to add Klister to my planned starting pair. So I put on SWIX 45, figuring we could always add Klister in the morning.

We stayed at an Airbnb up the hill from Tofte and when we woke there was a solid coating of slushy snow on the deck and big flakes coming down. Definitely not klister conditions. As we drove down to the lake, it was sprinkling. The course start was squishy soft, perfect warm klister conditions but most of my group knew better. Erik and I lined up near the front and we took off fast. The snow was wet and slow. Soon we were climbing up the Pioneer Loop and I was glad to have kick but lots of skiers passed Erik and I. We were moving good and I was breathing reasonably hard so I tucked in behind Erik. Despite only wearing a spandex suit, I was getting hot. By the time we got towards the top of the Pioneer climb, skiers were stopping left and right to scrape off their skis, icing from klister. Zach Handler was one of many as was fellow Vakaver Ben who had decided to use klister. As we skied up to the Deer Yard Loop we caught up to Molly Watkins and skied behind her into the Deer Loop aid station. Here I found a brownie bite to take down. I wasn't hungry yet and didn't feel like eating after a big breakfast but knew it would be a long day and that I'd have to start fueling early. 

Craig, Brock, me (just behind Brock), and Erik at the start. No new fresh snow down here by the lake. Photo: Tracy Lundberg

Then we headed onto Deer Loop. There was lots of fresh snow up here, maybe 3 inches, and we skied in the skied-in track. Trying to pass was nearly impossible because the non-skied in track was so slow. I think we yo-yo'ed with Zach Handler three times as he had to stop and scrape his skis. Erik and I skied with Molly and some with Tyler Gilbert and Nate Rhode. I liked that Deer Yard Trail but soon we turned right onto the Short Trail which I could tell from the contour lines had some serious downhill. I let a couple skiers pass me so I could take the hills more cautiously, doing some snowplowing when I wasn't sure. The hills weren't too bad except for one that had a big rut at the bottom. 

Skiing Deer Yard with Molly, Erik, and even Maggie Mahota for awhile! Obviously some very pretty but slow fresh new snow up here. Photo: Jordon Woods

 

Allie (Ski North Ultra organizer) had changed the course the previous day to do two laps of Deer Yard instead of two laps of Pioneer to make for a couple more kilometers and a little less climbing so after finishing the Short Trail we headed back around Deer Yard. I didn't mind because the trees were nicely coated in snow. By now the track had been heavily skied in and was slushy and slippery. My kick wasn't as good but on the flip side I double poled significantly more. I curbed my speed again on the Short Trail but found the descent significantly more harrowing as the snow was transforming and grabby. My legs got really tired descending. Erik got a bit ahead of me here and stayed ahead as we turned to head down to the junction with Pioneer. That part was OK, albeit the last hill was really snowplowed out. But as we descended Pioneer, the track was fast but suck. The new snow on the side was uber slow. I was glad to be able to watch Erik ahead of me to see how he was navigating the track but found the fast suck quite scary. 

Then we ended back on the Norpine Trail heading back for our first pass through the Start/Finish. The snow here was a bit slow but reliable. After the descent I was freezing and made plans to grab my jacket at the Start/Finish even though I knew I had a big climb ahead of me. Some skiers were heading out for the Bally Creek lap as I was heading in. I put on my jacket, ate a couple quesadillas and a cookie. My teeth were chattering and I debated adding my pants as well but figured I'd get hot soon so just took off shivering. Erik had already left and Molly had passed me up as well. 

We skied back north on the Norpine Trails before skiing some hiking trails down to the bridge that crosses over the Cascade River where we began a two-way section up to the Bally Creek Trails. Here I was glad for the mandatory walking since the previous section of trail had had some narrow twisting downhills. After crossing the river the Cascade State Park ski trails had a fair amount of debris and my poles punching through. There were multiple well-marked intersections at least. Soon I began climbing the steep pitch heading towards Bally Creek. Then there was a downhill to another creek where I almost went off the bridge despite snowplowing. Then were was a long gradual climb up to Bally Creek. 

My Garmin map with some terrain that shows the Start/Finish on bottom, Deer Yard on left, and the climb up to Bally Creek on right.

Here I was in major trouble.  My energy was good but I had stayed on my skis from the Deer Yard part because I was afraid my Purple Oslo would ice. I hadn't added any extra kick wax and had no kick in the glazed tracks. So I tried to ski outside the tracks but either in the tracks or outside the snow was so soft that my pole plants were constantly punching through, sometimes punching through 1-2 feet! I'd recently changed to some larger pole baskets, BUT I NEEDED FRISBEES!. The small space of snow outside the tracks felt lumpy and I kept rolling my skis over, punching through the snow with my poles. I was super frustrated as a train of skiers passed me. The sun came out and I got hot so I had to stop to take off my jacket. 

By the time I got to the County 45 aid station I was more in disbelief than anything. How could things be going so badly? Then I ate my first cardamom roll, and things got worse. The doughy pastry wouldn't dissolve in my mouth. I couldn't swallow it. Someone had some kick wax I put on and then I kept going. More skiers passed me, including teammate Ben. There was a downhill that was relatively easy but then there was another downhill that was steeper. I snowplowed but I froze and just couldn't move my left ski over and it hit soft snow and I was down. I had to extract my left arm which was up to my armpit. My skis were over my poles. Finally I righted myself, shook some snow from my glasses, trudged across a swamp, and began a slow climb up the next hill. 

Ski North Ultra elevation profile from below 800 feet to over 1,800 feet.

I was looking forward to getting on the Bally Creek Trails, off this connector. If I got to the Bally Creek Loop before the leaders completed their loop, it meant I didn't need to worry about two-way traffic and would give me the slightest belief that perhaps I wasn't moving so slowly after all. 

I indeed made it to the loop intersection and saw the way back tracks were still coated in snow. Ben had stopped (I think for a snack) and I grumbled "I can't ski downhills, I can't ski uphills, I can't corner, I forgot how to double pole" as I kept slowly skiing. All my hope that the Bally Creek Trails would be better quickly vanished as my right pole sunk in a foot, then my left pole in two feet. Apparently they hadn't groomed much in the past two weeks since the two foot snowfall. So I kept a shuffling, stepping, sometimes skiing in the fresh track to get a little kick. Ok, a couple times I did look at some pine trees caked beautifully in snow, but these thoughts were fleeting. All the corners felts terrifying even if there was little elevation change, the new snow condensing and grabby. Don't worry about place. Just keep moving Elspeth because you are going to finish and NEVER do this race ever again! I passed the halfway mark in 5 hours and 7 minutes. Ben passed me back up as I tried to waddle uphill. Then there was a downhill. It should have been a nice downhill but the snow was weird, threatening to stop me and there was a recreational skier ahead of me. I snowplowed some to not overtake her as there really wasn't room. Then we came to a big intersection with a turn and she face-planted in front of me. I was able to step around her to the side and keep going, trying to double pole some gradual downhill but mostly failing.

I was really glad I'd spent so much time memorizing the map because we zigzagged around the Bally Creek Trails. Making it through every intersection felt like a small victory. Then there was a janky section out to the aid station, kinda like a trail just wide enough for skis had been plowed through a snowbank. I just kept my poles in front of me for that. I had a peanut butter rice krispy bar at that aid station and grabbed another brownie bite, then skied through the parking lot where my skis started icing. Fortunately I could kick it off once we got back on the trail but I was still chewing on the rice krispy bar and had the brownie bite in one hand so I couldn't double pole effectively. Finally I shoved the brownie bite in my mouth only to be reminded that my double poling wasn't effective when my poles punched through a foot. So I kept inching forward, mostly skiing in the fresh snow that felt like it had some hidden tracks underneath on any kind of incline. Damn that Erik for wanting to do this race and dragging me into it. Alright, I have almost 7 hours to do the second 50 kilometers. That just might be possible. Since when did I get this bad at skiing???? 

 

The Bally Creek portion of the trail where there were a couple skinny fingers.

My technique must've looked absolutely atrocious out there. I felt like I'd never been on skis before. It turns out that when you can't use your arms to propel you forward, and your skis don't have any kick, and the snow is slow, moving across any flat or uphill terrain is nearly impossible. My shoulders were getting really sore from my poles falling through so far and my forearm tendons were starting to hurt, too. I wondered if I could just run the last 25 km. I may have been dropping some F bombs out loud a few times and staving off some tears. 

After what felt like years, we made it to the intersection with the Bally Creek Loop and began descending towards the Start/Finish. I was with a couple other skiers, one who knew that Peter Daniels was the sweep for this section. We passed him early on which meant I could snowplow the downhills without worrying anyone was coming towards me. I'd kinda timed this section perfectly - no two-way in either direction for me. I snowplowed hard down all those hills and did my best to move up the ones to the 45 aid station where I skied across the road on a small patch of snow. This was the only aid station I skipped since I'd gotten two things at the Bally Creek one which had a better selection in my opinion and none of those acclaimed by others but not me cardamom rolls!

Then it was a fast descent down to the Cascade River. I snowplowed all the hills a lot and made it without falling over. The last big downhill wasn't even that bad because the snow was uniformly slushy. Soon I was going back across the river with my skis off and I looked upstream towards a big waterfall that was covered in ice except for the bottom where I could see the water rushing through. Next up we put our skis back on as I struggled to herring bone up the narrow Superior Hiking Trail, my pole plants still sinking in several inches to feet. After some time of struggling I thought, Elspeth, you can just take your skis off and walk/run! And so I did a couple times, mumbling outloud to myself my frustrations. When the terrain got flatter, I put the skis back on and then we popped out onto the somewhat icy Norpine Trails and I really cruised, even double poling up an uphill. I was really crushing until I hit a slushy sun-baked spot and nearly fell over. I'd have to be more careful. Soon I was back at the Start/Finish area where I grabbed a super yummy chocolate cookie, waded through the parking lot to use the port-a-potty for the first time since the race began, switched to the skis Finn Sisu waxed for me which I hoped had some magic to ease the icy-slush transitions and would also provide me some kick. I drank more water, filled up my bottle, and ate a second chocolate cookie since the first was so good. Then I was off for the last 25 km, happy that the winners had yet to come through.

Indeed it would be a couple kilometers before I met the first skier heading back to the finish. The trail was once again well groomed and my pole plants solid. Despite my aching shoulders, I double poled a fair bit, especially as it turned out I didn't have any kick. When I did get out of the tracks I mostly just walked, but sometimes found some extra energy for a few running steps. 

The last 25 km was mostly out-and-back but did have an extra loop (the Massie Loop) on the way back. The top eight or nine skiers, including Craig, all passed me before I got to the Massie Loop cut-off. It was helpful to have some two-way traffic in this section because Craig, Erik, Ben, and I had all car-pooled together so then we'd kind of be able to keep tabs on each other. While the course mostly climbed to Caribou Trail, there were a few downhills on the way out. Despite the trail being quite wide, I didn't trust the various stages of transformed snow and did more snowplowing than I would've liked. I've also discovered I'm not very good at going downhill for a long time. I'm just not used to it on cross-country skis where most of the time in Minnesota our hills are short.

I passed one skier on fish scales and then my teammate Dave passed me. I didn't like this so much but he had klister. He didn't appear to be climbing with much energy so I figured I must've been looking draggy myself. That and after the disappointingly slow Bally Creek section, I had pretty much resigned myself to just finishing. Then after a just "out" section we reached the Massie Trail intersection and saw skiers coming back, including Erik. From here it wasn't far to the Caribou Trail aid station and turn-around. I was getting hungry for the first time all day. Not long before the turn around I saw Ben heading back down. At the aid station I caught up to Dave, took down a brownie bite, and then took off ahead of him. From here it was almost all downhill to the Massie Loop. I knew the turn was coming so curbed some speed and then began the climb up on the Massie Trail. I found some new energy and did a slow run outside the tracks and then began double poling again once the trail leveled off. There's no time like the present to start training for my double pole Birkie! But alas before I reached the top I needed to give my arms a break and walked a bit more.

Then there were some nice flat sections, but with each pole plant the front of my shoulders jabbed me with pain. We hit this super dense dark forest section. Soon we were cruising gently downhill. I half tucked and certainly could have double poled more if not for my aching shoulders. Then I was back down to the two-way section again, very glad I wasn't any of the skiers still heading out. I looked at my watch and thought I might be able to make it back under 9.5 hours which provided me some extra motivation to work hard in the flat or uphill sections, but mostly I flew downhill on trails that were now icy as the sun got lower, often with one ski snowplowing outside the track. This year I've realized I far prefer icy trails to slushy trails or a mix of both.

Erik and Craig were out getting in a couple extra kilometers to get to a full 100 km (the course was less than 2 km short) and I saw them about a kilometer from the finish. I screamed by them on a downhill and then within a couple minutes was crossing the finish. 9 hours 26 minutes. By the time I had my skis off and some pants and a jacket on I was chattering. Between the shivering and my painful shoulders, I had no interest in skiing a couple more kilometers to get to exactly 100 km. Instead I ate a sweet roll and packed up my skis.

 

My Garmin map of the course. I got 4,600 feet of ascent/descent and 61.20 miles. Longest way on skis for me ever. 

A few things to note if you do this race:

1. Ski selection is of utmost importance if there will be transforming/variable snow conditions. Lots of skiers this year had good result on skins or zeros (these did have some icing issues for some). Erik and I and Craig seemed to be the most successful at kick waxing for the first section. Craig said he still had good kick with Rode +2 to -2 on the Bally Loop but otherwise kick wax was very finicky. If you do go with kick wax, consider bringing like 6-9 pairs of skis, all waxed with different kick for the various sections:) My three were woefully insufficient. 

Karl stopped to scrape his zeros. Photo: Jordon Woods

2. What to wear proved a bit difficult for me. I didn't want to get too sweaty and in the end am glad I didn't add any long underwear under my spandex but I was cold for about an hour around hour three. It's hard to dress when climbing uphill for 30+ minutes at a time, then blasting back downhill. 

3. Most definitely have a fueling plan. For me I just like to drink water and since I paid for the race, I wanted to eat what they had there. We would suggest some warm ham and cheese sandwiches for more protein. Otherwise I mostly skied on brownie bites. I don't recommend the cardamom rolls but others really rave about these.

4. You can have a bag (or bags) in the transition zone. I was certain I'd switch out my headband and handwear every time but found that I sweated way less than anticipated and so didn't need to. This is where you can also stash your extra skis. 

Start/finish chaos with lots of extra skis and bags everywhere. Photo: Jordon Woods.

5. Know the course. This year I thought it was very well marked but I also had studied it at length. I think this mentally helped me to know where I was. There was a GPX available that many loaded onto their watches as well. I'm not that high-tech.

In summary:

I wasn't having it on that whole middle section up to Bally Creek and around Bally Creek. I fared better on the descent than I thought I would in that section. Otherwise I wasn't a fan of many of the downhills, but conditions were tricky. As Craig wrote about last year regarding his Ski North Ultra race, conditions significantly transitioned last year as well. Perhaps it's a good thing that we ended on such nice trails to make my experience a bit better. I definitely said I would never do this race again but it's been less than a week and I can't help but think that under some different conditions (like if Bally Creek groomed a bit more often and there wasn't so much suck snow) and if I had some kick (or pole plants) I could've done better. I'm glad I did it,especially seeing as my shoulders recovered quicker than I thought they might.