The lake is out.

The lake is a flowage: a dam across a river. If there’s a lot of melt and rain, the lake flows. If the lake flows, the ice becomes unstable, and you don’t exactly want to ski across it. So that has happened.

This is Wheeler Road down by Duffy’s Field, we think.

Reports from the rest of the trail, at least south of OO, don’t sound so hot, either. Here’s my best guess as to what is going to happen, assuming the north end of the trail is at least mostly intact:

• The Korteloppet will run from OO to Cable (or Cable to OO, depending on which direction makes the most sense).
• The Birkie will run from Cable as far south on the trail as is possible, which will likely depend on how much snow (if any) falls on Friday. The latest model runs are all putting the Birkie right on the edge of the storm, so that will be a wait-and-see.

So the news today is … not good. If the storm comes north and drops enough snow, we might do fine. If not, the best we can hope for is a 25k Birkie to OO, much like 2007. In 2007, the storm hit on Saturday night. This year, it comes a day-and-a-half earlier. We’ll keep an eye out on it.