The Matanuska, Susitna, and Denali (Comp) Loops are super-sweet skiing right now. They are closed to all Walkers and Bikers for the season.

Pioneer Loop is always open for all users. Grooming Report

Mat-Su Ski Club's 2019 ICICLE DOUBLE

December 28 and 29, 2019 at GPRA

REGISTER HERE

The Mat-Su Ski Club's premier race event!

More Information

Thanks to the 2019 Icicle Double Sponsors!

ADULT SKI LESSONS - walk-ons welcome!

Mat-Su Ski Club is hiring a Race Director and Chief Timer

The Mat-Su Ski Club is contracting for a Race Director and Chief Timer for the 2019/20 ski season. Seven races, about 120 hours work for the Race Director, or 50 hours for the Race Timer. Mid January to mid February. (Details here)

Applicants with experience in Nordic skiing or racing are preferred.

The Club can help with mission-specific training.

Please send inquiries to admin@matsuski.org before December 1.

The Mat-Su Ski Club's newly-acquired 2006 PistenBully 100 has arrived. We are using it to groom at Independence Mine at Hatcher Pass. As the snowline moves down from the alpine, so will the PB. It will spend most of the winter at GPRA. Besides helping prevent our (volunteer) groomers from going insane circling the trails 40 times on our old equipment after huge snowfalls, the PB should bring a marked improvement to grooming quality at GPRA.

Years of paid Club memberships,  Junior Nordic participation fees, and your generous donations made this possible.

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Thanks to those who donated on Giving Tuesday!

Yᴏᴜʀ Donation brings us closer to transport for the PistenBully.

RESULTS  November 16th, 2019

Bi-Annual Race to the Outhouse

Skate and Classic.  At Independence Mine, Hatcher Pass.

Volunteer Groomers Wanted!

Contact us if you have 3 or 4 late or very late evening hours, once a week, and want to help groom the trails.

Biathlon Range Regulations

A comment period was open until November 15, 2019 concerning the Alaska Dept. of Natural Resources proposal to change regulations in order to allow a biathlon range at GPRA.
The change is intended to allow only 22 caliber rifles using low-power ammunition, and only on a designated range, at designated times, and only with a range safety officer present.
The Mat-Su Ski Club supports the change.
More information at http://notice.alaska.gov/195671

The Club was busy last summer

Volunteers did a fair amount of trail maintenance and improvement at GPRA between ski seasons.  A few days of heavy equipment work accomplished a lot: building a clever new cut-through that includes part of the Matanuska Loop into the homologated race loops, along with widening key spots and improving corners on the Matanuska; a few key drainage issues were addressed; some very large rocks were removed.  Volunteers built a new section of winter-only trail, with one bridge, connecting the Mountain Streams loops to the Flattop Trail.

In the summer the nordic trail system is basically 30 spaghetti acres of lawn, some of it on pretty steep hills. A lot of people helped maintain the trails and repair damage. Lots of small scale dirt work and rock reinforcing and vegetation rehab.  The whole system got mowed the usual five or six times. A significant timbering effort thinned the beetle killed spruce back from the trails.

Thanks to the volunteers who helped maintain GPRA last summer and to the sponsors that supported that work.

Recap of 2018-2019 Grooming of Nordic ski trails.

The 2018-19 grooming season lasted 197 days. (Compared to 226 days last season)

Our grooming season started on Oct 29th, 2018 at both Independence Mine and GPRA; and ended on May 14th, 2019 back at Independence Mine. We would have continued grooming for another week or two, but the State came up and plowed the snow away.

At Independence Mine we groomed on 11 fall days and 3 spring days; 112 hours of grooming (not including 27 hours of trail prep and equipment shuttling). (Compared to 21 fall and 9 spring grooming events last season)

At Archangel Road we groomed on 50 days, during a 151-day period;  237 hours of grooming. (Compared to 40 grooming events over 183 days last season)

At GPRA and Mountain Streams we groomed on 47 days, during a 138-day period; 380 hours of grooming. (Compared to 58 grooming events over 153 days last season)

At the Matanuska Moose Range we groomed on 40 days, over a 101-day period; 75 hours of grooming.  (Compared to 35 grooming events over 102 days last season)

About 800 Mat-Su Ski Club volunteer hours went into grooming and machine maintenance during the 2018-2019 Nordic ski season. (Compared to about 900 hours last ski season)

THANK YOU GROOMERS!