Round Meadow Trails

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Round Meadow Trails

Wrapping up our Christmas vacation on 5 January 2025, Zosia Zgolak and I made a brief stop at Round Meadow Trails near Whitefish, Montana to squeeze in one last ski. This small network of cross-country ski trails is maintained by Glacier Nordic Club. A useful brochure with map can be found here.

From US Highway 93, turn west onto Farm To Market Road 18.0 kilometres west of the intersection with Baker Avenue (Highway 487) in Whitefish or 64.0 kilometres south of Eureka. Drive 2.7 kilometres and turn right onto Star Meadows Road. Drive 1.6 kilometres and turn right into the trailhead parking lot (vault toilet available).

With a long drive home still ahead of us, Zosia and I only spent about 1.5 hours skiing here. We did a counter-clockwise loop of mostly groomed trails including "Round Meadow Trail" and "Fox Run". Snow coverage was adequate for skiing, but there were still a few spots where vegetation was sticking out of the snow. To close our loop, we skied the shorter eastern half of "Lookout" which was ungroomed and had one very challenging hill to descend. Zosia managed to zigzag her way down without a spill, but I did not fare so well. Ironically, this difficult descent added some spice to an otherwise unremarkable ski outing.

	Round Meadow Trails are all the more enchanting to ski on this day because of the snowy trees.
	The sign appears to be stating the obvious.
	Zosia skis through another sublime stretch of forest.
	Sonny inadvertently finds himself on an ungroomed trail. Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak
	Zosia descends possibly the steepest hill in the entire trail network.
	Total Distance: 6.2 kilometres Round-Trip Time: 1 hour 21 minutes Cumulative Elevation Gain: 60 metres GPX Data