Lutsen

[NMU Alpine Boarder]

Just curious if anyone had an opinion on the place... I'm racing there for the first time this weekend.... I'm told this definately isn't a budget friendly place....

[BobD]

It's not a very carver friendly place. The runs are narrow and the grooming often isn't great. It's also a typical ski vacation resort, in that very few skiers carve, so the runs get bumped out very quickly. Lots of one w/e a year people, which combined with the tight trails and lots of trees, makes for the busiest ski patrol I've ever seen.

BobD

[kirtap]

Yeah, I was up there all last weekend and it wasn't the greatest. It was hard to find a good run to carve on for the reasons already stated. It did get very bumpy very quickly and I think they definitely missed a run or two with the grooming machines (whatever they're called...) each night. There were big races on Moose Mountain the whole weekend so I didn't venture over there too often because there were just too many skiers, but maybe there were some better runs on that side. I did see one other carver, although I only saw him once as he was skidding a turn and I couldn't find him the rest of the weekend. I do believe there are some BOL members that frequent Lutsen, so hopefully they'll chime in here. And don't let this get you down. There were runs that were good early morning, you just have to find them since it will change each day with the grooming.

Just my thoughts...hope they help

[rwmaron]

I don't encounter many carvers at Lutsen - my take on it is that it's hard to consistently find good runs that aren't either closed for ski races, not groomed, or skiied off down the hardpack (this year especially....). But if you're lucky on the day of the week, recent weather, and grooming, Bridge and River runs on Eagle and Caribou/Cascade and Alpha on Moose can be quite enjoyable (especially since they've set up a terrain park on Mystery that draws off a certain percentage of traffic).