Work on the more remote areas of the marathon course occurred over the weekend. Here are the highlights from Ishpeming to 510 after getting eyes on it:
A few trees needed to be cleared from the last ice and windstorm and some cleanup on the edges of the trail was needed. Water crossings have started to be prepped, and trail has had some packing in. The ice is sufficiently think on Deer Lake and the Dead River Basin. There is a lot of slush under the snow however and we are prepping those for what we are hoping will be some cold air on the backside of this weeks warm and sloppy weather. We elected to hold off on some things until the worst of that passes – there could be some rain in the mix but it also is looking like a good amount of new snow will fall on top of what we already have. The snow situation is quite good – it is almost hip deep in most places. There is however open water running on some of the creeks – it just has not been cold enough this winter for those to be freeze up. But, once the messy/warm weather moves through this week those will be able to be addressed as there is plenty of snow to move around out there. There is quite a bit more work to do out there but it’s coming together. We will hope for more cold at the end of this week which will help firm things up even more. Hopefully the conditions in the Marquette city limits (closer to the Lake Superior and warmer) will hold up. We will be watching the extended forecast closely. Early reports are hinting to arctic air dropping out of Canada which would be good!
We will provide more updates later into the week.