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Badger State Games a go; weekend ski races adjust to low-snow conditions

Posted by Tom Held on Feb. 2, 2012

Nordic skiing

The winter of skier discontent produced mixed news for the races on a busy weekend.

The Badger State Games are a firm go, with adequate snow on the trails in the Nine Mile County Forest outside Wausau. Minocqua Winter Park also reports good conditions for its inaugural Wolf Tracks Rendevous.

A lack of snow, however, forced organizers of the Wisconsin Biathlon Winter Festival to cancel its event Saturday at the McMiller Recreation Area near Eagle. The Nicolet Nor-Ski on the Lakewood Trails also has been canceled and will postpone its debut until 2013.

In the Twin Cities, the City of Lakes Loppet has been shifted to a loop course in Theodore Wirth Park.

Continuing the season-long pattern of winners and losers, cross-country ski trails north of Highway 10 have snow. Kicking and gliding in the south has been limited, and the near-record high temperatures this week wiped out the snow that was left. Check out the latest trail reports here.

Temperatures in Wausau stayed out of the 50s this week, and the snow cover survived for the Badger State Games, rebuilding after a change in management.

Some bare spots on the Nine Mile course will require fill-in work, but overall the “trails will be good to go” for roughly 400 skiers on Saturday.

Like the snowfall, the numbers are down a bit this year, but organizers are happy with turnout in a transition year.

The Sports Authority of the Wausau/Central Wisconsin Convention and Visitors Bureau took over the games in October, two months after the Wisconsin Sports Development Authority dropped the sports enterprise.