With the mercury reaching new temperature highs on two consecutive days in Whitehorse, winter sports have taken a hit as the snow blanketing the city quickly turned to slush and dirt.

But with a busy weekend of races and trials approaching, groups are optimistic this morning that they will be able to continue with their events with slight modifications.

On the cross-country skiing side, the Don Sumanik Memorial Races are scheduled for this Saturday at Mount McIntyre hosted by the Grey Mountain Lions Club.

Race chief Kyle Janzen said this morning that it looks like there will be enough snow for the 3.75 and 3.3-kilometre loops with some course modifications to move away from icy parts of the trials.

“The trails are very icy in places, crusty in other places and incredibly fast,” Janzen said.

“We’ve had to modify our course for the Don Suamink’s tomorrow in order to eliminate some of the downhill sections especially those with sharp corners.”

But with an anticipated high today of 7 degrees celsius and 5 degrees on race day with the chance of rain, Janzen said they will need to take another look tomorrow ahead of race time to make sure it is still safe to run.

“We just have to take it as it comes, we have no control over it,” he said. “We just have to see what we can do.”

Cross Country Yukon does have snowmaking equipment this year, but Janzen said they need temperatures below zero in order to start producing snow and patch up some of the trails.

Head coach Alain Masson said via email that the trail conditions have deteriorated greatly in the past two days and they have been hard at work shovelling snow and moving it around to cover bare spots on the trails.

On the biathlon range at Grey Mountain, Biathlon Yukon is getting set for their first weekend of Arctic Winter Games trials. Club president Bill Curtis was on the trails this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see reasonably good conditions.

“We’re quite happy actually,” Curtis said. “I was quite pessimistic on my drive up here.”

They had to make a course modification to one of the penalty loops to move away from the dirt, he explained.

The race is scheduled for 1 p.m. tomorrow – in the afternoon because usually it is too cold in the morning and they allow some time for the temperatures to warm up. But that will not be the case this time around. There will also be a race on Sunday afternoon.

Curtis said they will continue to watch the course conditions and will do so again tomorrow before the race but right now are considering it to be a go.

Up at Mount Sima on the other hand, the higher elevation and snowmaking seems to be working wonders as the mountain plans to be open this weekend.

Mt. Sima posted on their Facebook page Thursday that it is still cold on the mountain and groomers are hard at work to get the slopes ready for the weekend.

“The snow is in great condition - we can’t wait to share it with you!” the post read.

A Mt. Sima staff member couldn’t be reached for comment this morning, but the snow conditions phone line that was updated early this morning said unlike the rest of the city, snowy conditions remain in effect on the mountain and slopes are groomed and ready to go.

“Conditions are looking amazing, definitely not brown up at Mt. Sima like it is downtown. It’s a winter wonderland up there,” the message said.

The mountain is scheduled to be open Friday-Sunday between 10 a.m. until 3 p.m.

Environment Canada said Thursday saw a record-high of 8 degrees celsius observed at the Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport, shattering the previous reported Dec. 7 record of 6.1 degrees celsius in 1960.

Today, a temperature record could also be broken for the third straight day with a predicted high of seven degrees according to Environment Canada and a previous record high of 6.8 degrees in 2005.

It isn’t the trails that snowshoeing coach Don White is afraid of for the upcoming Arctic Winter Games snowshoeing trials this weekend.

But the sport has a track component and they were hoping to race on the F.H. Collins Secondary School track.

White said the track conditions are challenging and it will be hit or miss for the trials Saturday.

“The north and west are not bad, but there is a lot of gravel showing on the south and east,” he said via email. “It will make it challenging.”

The Mt. MacIntyre trails are still in good condition for their races, White said after just completing a training session on their scheduled course trails.

This substantial shift in the weather comes after a few weeks of chillingly cold weather with lower than average temperatures also causing some impact on outdoor activities.

Janzen said the fluctuating weather has affected the early ski season, but they will continue to do what they can to continue training and hosting the scheduled events throughout the season.

“Nobody was skiing three weeks ago because it was too cold and nobody is skiing now because it’s too warm,” Janzen said.