The Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club has exceeded 1,300 members for the past season, the second year in a row that the club has broken the 1,300 barrier.

"It was a pretty good year,” said Claude Chabot, the club's executive director.

Both close to home and on the Outside, local skiers were making big strides.

Chabot said some of the highlights from the season were the Arctic Winter Games and the club finishing second at the Haywood Ski Nationals in Quebec; the best ever finish for the Yukon.

"The ski team did very well,” he said.

"The Arctic Winter Games are always a fun time and keeps us all on our toes from an organizational standpoint.”

An unexpected highlight this past season was the perfect weather conditions.

"Aside from local skiers, the great snow conditions and mild weather attracted a number of visitors to the club,” Chabot said in a press release.

"At various times, we had visitors from all over Canada, Alaska, Japan, Germany and even Australia out on the trails.” The club sold 2,500 day passes over the season to visitors and casual skiers.

"We usually have two or three weeks or even a month of cold temperatures were people get out of the habit of skiing but that didn't really happen this year so it was a good year for us.”

With no major events scheduled on next year's calendar, Chabot said it's important to find a balance between keeping the skiers sharp and the volunteers energized.

"There is always a bit of a trade off, you want to do enough major events to keep everyone's skills sharp but you don't want to burn the volunteers out,” he said.

"So something major every two to three years is kind of our target right now.”

The strong continuing membership is a great vote of confidence in the club, one of the top clubs in the country,” said Tom Ullyett, club president.

"Nowhere else in the country can boast such a great trail system so close to down town. Mix this with a six month ski season and you have a surefire recipe for success.”

Due to heavy snowfall the club started grooming the trails on October 13, which was earlier than expected.

"Our only issue was trying to keep up with all the grooming this season,” said Chabot.

The club has now wrapped up its grooming efforts but Chabot said there's still a few weeks of skiing left.

"On the higher-level trails we've still got some snow and there's still some skiers out there,” he said.

"The trick is to time your outings and ski early in the morning before temperatures rise too much or later in the day after things cool off.

"Get it right and skiing can be great.”