There's no ticket window at the Jim Whisenhant Cross-Country Ski Center. You can drive up Wilderness Drive, click into your bindings and ski Birch Hill all winter without buying a day pass or clipping a ticket to your jacket. The Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks says that grooming the same trails costs it over $100,000 a year, counting labor, fuel, equipment maintenance and depreciation, and equipment rental.
The club says none of that is government money. Its trail donation page says it comes from members, corporate sponsors and donors. The club counts about 300 memberships a year, which works out to roughly 800 people, since one family membership covers several skiers. So the groomed corduroy everyone skis on is paid for by a fairly small group, and this winter that group is also skiing out of the same buildings the Borough has already designed a replacement for but has mostly left unfunded.
What the honor system asks of you
The club does not charge for trail access. Its board publishes suggested season donations instead, set from the program's actual operating costs. The club says a survey of fee-charging club and commercial trail systems in the Lower 48 and Canada found these amounts typical, or even on the low end, for a ski center the size and quality of Birch Hill.
| Suggested season donation | Amount |
|---|---|
| Youth, younger than high school | $90 |
| Junior or student, high school or college | $150 |
| Adult | $200 |
| Adult couple | $300 |
| Family, children through high school | $400 |
| Tracksetter sustaining donor | $500 |
| Trailblazer sustaining donor | $1,000 |
Spread $100,000 across about 300 memberships and you get more than $330 per membership, above the suggested $300 for a couple. The club's own page lays out the arithmetic in plain terms: "If you do the math, you can see that it is important that our club members make meaningful donations to cover these costs."
The club also explains why grooming here costs more than at trail systems Outside. It notes that most ski operations outside Alaska run a season one-half to two-thirds as long as a typical Fairbanks season, and "the cost of our grooming operations is a direct function of the length of our season." Every extra week of groomed trail in October or April adds fuel and labor that someone has to pay for.
Membership is a separate line from the trail donation. Dues are $25 for a student, $50 for an individual and $90 for a family, and a family membership covers children under 18 in the household. Memberships run September 1 through August 31, so the 2026–27 year is already underway. The club now requires a current membership for every NSCF-sanctioned program, Junior Nordics included.
Grooming is only part of the work. The club's trails page lists its Birch Hill duties as seasonal grooming, clearing fallen trees, maintaining the trail lighting with the Borough, and setting race markings.
The building that's designed but mostly unfunded
The Borough has a plan to replace the Birch Hill warming hut. The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly awarded Design Alaska a $295,380 contract to design a 5,000-square-foot multipurpose building at Birch Hill. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported that Public Works Director David Bredlie said the new building would replace the warming hut, the timing building and Rikka's Roadhouse, which is used for bib pickup at race and ski events.
The Borough's adopted FY2027 Capital Improvement Program, adopted February 26, 2026, prices the whole project at $10.5 million. It also calls for relocating Rikka's so the building can be reused once construction is done. Here is where the money stands. The plan assigns $40,000 to scoping, $360,000 to design and $500,000 to construction in each of two years. The remaining $9.1 million is marked "BY." The News-Miner described that "beyond years" label as the category for projects with no assigned funding.
The Borough did ask the state for help. In its legislative capital priorities, the Assembly included a $10 million request for the Birch Hill multipurpose building, plus $400,000 for an emergency generator at the ski building. The News-Miner quoted Borough Mayor Grier Hopkins as saying, "We selected 10 projects that will be ready for construction this coming summer. They are projects that have been scoped and designed. We are asking the Legislature for construction dollars."
The state's FY2027 budget, enacted in June 2026, does not include the Birch Hill building in its alphabetical list of enacted projects. Birch Hill isn't on the governor's veto list either, so the building wasn't funded and then cut. It never made the enacted list.
The generator is in the same spot. The CIP lists it at $400,000 so the ski building can stay running during GVEA outages, through public events and C.O.O.P. events alike. So far it exists only as a line in the CIP.
What this winter looks like as a result
The Borough's plan doesn't change who pays to groom. The trails stay on the club's donation-funded budget, and this season skiers will be using the existing buildings.
The club's Junior Nordics page sets a cold-weather rule for this season.
"Due to very limited access to indoor facilities this season, practices will be cancelled if temperature is colder than -5F."
That's a strict cutoff for a Fairbanks youth program running from November into February. Cancellation notices go out by email two hours before lessons, and the club says it does not guarantee a set number of lessons. If your family is already signed up, watch your email on cold lesson days.
The program is also full. Junior Nordics serves ages 5 to 14, with lessons from November 5, 2026, through February 28, 2027. Monday sessions are at UAF, and Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday sessions are at Birch Hill. Fees are $215 for one day a week, $385 for two and $540 for three, and the registration page now shows a waitlist. The club says the program needs more than 50 parent and high school helpers. No coaching experience is needed for the youngest groups, and the contact is [email protected]. Volunteering is one way to help keep Birch Hill free that doesn't involve writing a check.
Across town, UAF grooms the West Ridge and Skarland trails itself, outside the club's Birch Hill budget. UAF lists 14.7 miles of groomed ski trail on its North Campus of about 1,100 acres, which helps when Birch Hill is crowded.
The season's first two weekends, and what comes after
NSCF's race page says the 2026–27 calendar is still under construction. Treat the dates below as the club's working schedule and check them before you go.
Kickoff weekend, October 24–25
- Saturday, October 24, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.: West Valley High School ski swap, at WVHS.
- Saturday, October 24, 1 to 4 p.m.: Kendall Kramer's "Game On" ski day for young women.
- Sunday, October 25, 2 to 6 p.m.: NSCF open house and annual meeting at the Birch Hill Ski Center. If you've ever wondered where the grooming money goes, this is where the club does its business in public.
November
- November 14: Town Series #1, a 7.5-km classic mass start at Birch Hill, and biathlon races there November 14–15.
- November 21–22: Alaska Nordic Cup at UAF, with a 10-km classic and a team sprint.
- November 27: Turkey Day Relays at Birch Hill, classic relay legs of 1 to 4 km.
December at Birch Hill
- December 5: Town Series #2, a freestyle sprint.
- December 11: Friday Night Races #1.
- December 12: Distance Series #1, 7.5 or 15 km, freestyle mass start.
- December 17, 5:30 p.m.: Candy Cane Romp.
- December 20, 2 p.m.: Candy Cane Ski. Earlier that morning, at 10 a.m., the Solstice Sunrise Ski runs at Moose Mountain.
- December 26, 10 a.m.: Ski Your Age.
Those Birch Hill events will run with the existing warming hut, timing building and Rikka's Roadhouse still standing, the three buildings the Borough's design would replace. The trails will be groomed out of donations this winter, the same as last winter. If you plan to ski Birch Hill this season and haven't sent in a season donation, the club's donation page lists every level.
After helping people settle into Fairbanks since 1994, I still think it's remarkable that a trail system like Birch Hill asks for a donation and takes your word for it. If you're new to town, maybe with orders to Fort Wainwright or Eielson, and want to know which neighborhoods put you a short drive from Birch Hill or the UAF trails, Ginger Orem is happy to talk it through with you. Let's Connect.
