Despite the lack of snow - for the second consecutive year - the Loppet Winter Festival is fully prepared for this weekend's event.
No natural snow?
"Although folks would prefer to have natural snow in the area, we're doing great with our manmade snow, and it's really, there's minimal disruptions to our races," explains Executive Director Megan Cosgrove.
How much snow did they make?
"We actually have about seven kilometers ready to go and and have for a while now," Cosgrove says of the course. "And we'll use about five of those."
That must have taken quite some time?
"We started making snow around Thanksgiving and then we wrapped up about 10 days ago," she said. "So, what has been great about this winter is it's been cold enough to make great snow."
That all means the Loppet Winter Festival at Theodore Wirth Park will proceed as planned. With MSP seeing only about 5 inches of snow so far, and temperatures soaring to above 50 earlier this week, organizers have been cranking out the course without Mother Nature's help.
"As you can imagine, there's various setups throughout the park that then we can blow snow in those concentrated areas and then move as we go," Cosgrove explains about the process. "And then we use what's called PistenBully's to groom the snow. So that's how we move the snow around and how we have it in such good compressed shape for this type of event."
Races start Saturday morning at 8:30 and conclude Sunday afternoon. Olympic Gold Medalist and Afton, Minnesota's Jessie Diggins will not participate this year after being a part of last year's event. Diggins is in Europe racing the World Cup.
