Looks like snow is on the way! But it will be a while (hopefully not TOO long!) before we get significant snow depth.
So… where to go when there’s not a lot of snow?
If there’s at least 5 or 6” of snow at Swampy Lakes Sno-Park, the main loop trails (Ridge Loop, Swampy Loop) are generally passable as they are also summer trails, so they are cleared to the ground. Parts of the Swede Loop are separate from the summer trail so most of it should be passable but there may be ‘step overs’ on the parts away from the summer trail.
Other trails, such as the Nordeen Loop, the new Crosscut trail or the Shelter Tie trail from Ridge to the Swampy Loop are not maintained as summer trails so can have a fair amount of stepovers.
At Dutchman , nearly all the trails are winter only trails for most of their length so there needs to be about 2 feet of snow to be able to ski over logs. So the best option for skiing at Dutchman is to stay off the trails and just do a loop in the pumice flats.
Keep doing that snow dance!

This is the way we clear ‘winter only’ trails. You can expect some logs so there needs to be a fair amount of snow to cover them.

This is what skiing at the Pumice Flats at Dutchman looks like with 6” of snow.