There are tons of places to cross country ski in the metro area but most of them cost money (a ridiculous amount of money in the case of the Minneapolis Park System) or have no place to park or both. This one is beautiful, free, and has a gigantic parking lot. The downside (for me) is that it is kind of a long drive, but it's convenient for my current skiing buddy so if the weather holds we'll probably be back there again.


It's the Bunker Hills Golf Course. Not to be confused with the adjacent Bunker Hills Regional Park, which is both expensive and much too hilly for wimpy skiers like me. The day was spectacular - 20-something degrees, blue sky, barely breezy. Unfortunately, something about the combination of sun and temperature made the snow not nearly as good for skiing as it looks. For some reason, you just could not glide. It wasn't just us - almost all the other skiers we encountered were having the same problem, even the guy with waxed skis. But as everybody paraphrased, "Well, yeah, the snow IS awfully sticky. But it's so beautiful today!!" So we just tried to pretend that we were on very long snowshoes and enjoyed the opportunity to get out.