Christmas break

This blog will not be updated again until Jan. 3, plus or minus. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Boilerplate

What I found out there yesterday is called "eastern boilerplate". I first heard these words applied to snow conditions in 1970, my first year in Deep River, so this is an expected phenomenon. For the non-technical people out there, boilerplate originally meant a piece of hard, flat, smooth steel intended for the manufacture of a pressure vessel. Paint it white and you have our ski trails right now.

In the equipment yard near the DRXC chalet, you can find the remains of a welded-up groomer that we made in the 80s to attempt to break up boilerplate. It was bent beyond repair by a hidden root after only about 1.5 km. The moral of the story is that we have no equipment to deal with boilerplate, even if we had enough snow to keep from hitting roots and rocks.

All of the set tracks are hard and bumpy, so the downhills are quite hazardous. These are ski-breaking, joint-dislocating conditions. Beware.

The Christmas grooming

An effort was made to make the skiing as good as possible with the existing snow, for the Christmas season. All of the groomed trails were packed and a classic track was set everywhere but H, the M extension and the power line. Smoothing with a "bedframe" was done for the first time on M, the S uphill and the H downhill, "the High-School loop".

D, R, X, and M should have a good track for classic. Snow cover is still thin and the track setter deflected off obstacles a few times. Rock skis are recommended.

C, S and B have a track, but rougher than the other loops.

Small-M should have good skate-skiing. M-loop will be smoother now, but more rocks and roots will be closer to the surface and there will be soft spots before and after the bumps where the bedframe dumped snow. The High-School loop is very rough with major bare spots and holes, especially at the bottom. The alders will also be a challenge on H.

At least one of the groomers had Handel's Messiah in mind today ...."The crooked made straight and the rough places plain".

Merry Christmas. Enjoy the skiing while it lasts.

Tuesday, Dec 15

The snow was dry in the morning, so I set a single track on D, R, X, M and the powerline. The new snow set up quite quickly leaving a nice firm track, but the track was not well formed everywhere -- too little snow. R-loop had no wet snow after I drove over the wet spots, but that can change quickly.

I also repacked small M for skating. I am not planning to groom the powerline again until closer to Jack-Rabbits, to maintain workable snow in case of a thaw while almost no one is using it. I will experiment with smoothing M for skating, but I can already see the ground on small-M and skaters should not hold their breath for good skating on M-loop.

B and C are still very risky for skis and skiers.

We are now the proud possessors of two beautiful Yamaha snowmobiles. These are the long-track, 3-cylinder, liquid-cooled machines designed for professional use. We will have to continue to use the 15-year-old Alpines for packing new snow until the new grooming implements arrive, hopefully before the new year.

'09 Dec 14

It's snowing, life is good. The plan is to groom on Tuesday afternoon (Dec. 15) after most of the snow is down and the new snow starts to dry out. With so little snow, we cannot groom more than once and it will be a mistake to drive on the snow too soon. Keep up the snow dances -- good work so far.

2009 Dec 12

All of the club's townsite trails have been machine packed. A classic track was set on D. "Small-M" and the power line were smoothed for skating and a track was set.

Average depth of compacted snow varies from 5 cm in the woods to 7 cm where no trees are overhead to less than 2 cm over any visible bump. Expect to hit hidden roots and rocks on all trails. B and C are in very hazardous condition, for skis and for skiers.