Too much ice

Inspection of D-loop after the recent "grooming" shows many metres of ice frozen on the ground with a lot of debris from the trees on top. Driving the new tenderizer over these areas three times and following with the track setter had almost no effect, except to scrape the skiffle of new snow off the debris. Nowhere was the set track well formed.

In all decisions of whether to groom or not, the primary question is whether or not skiing will be improved. In the present circumstances and after a direct trial, the answer is not. It is pretty much a no-brainer to leave the new snow on top of the debris rather than to beat up the equipment for no gain. My senior grooming consultant agrees that further attempts to set tracks now are not warranted on the bush trails. We are essentially back at square one and we need several inches of new snow to start over again.

I note with interest that the entire Gatineau Park system was closed for several days because of mild weather. Even now, only half of the system is open and skiers are strongly recommended not to ski on the ungroomed trails because of dangerous ice. This is where we are, with two differences: 1) we cannot close our trails in mild weather, which results in even harder ice, and 2) the OPP drove on our snow at its wettest. Go figure.

Dangerous conditions

The OPP snowmobiles left very deep ruts on many of the turns on all DRXC ski trails. The worst ruts are about 15 cm deep with 15 cm ridges of hard, lumpy ice frozen on the outside of the turn. I have started to flatten the trails, but my 800-lb snowmobile does not even come close to flattening the ruts. On all trails and especially on the downhills, these ruts require extreme caution to avoid a serious fall.

I flattened D-loop and the short M-loop and set a track of sorts. I also started to flatten H, S and B, to be continued. After one pass, the ruts are still very obvious and the snow that is scraped into the ruts is much softer than the rest of the track.

I am in the middle of arranging for local delivery of new equipment, assembling new equipment, grooming for weekend programs and planning grooming for the Silver Spoon. Do not expect quick restoration of good skiing anywhere soon.

Unhappy times

I encountered several OPP Search & Rescue officers in the R-loop parking lot today, preparing to scour the area on skidoos. This may make the ski trails even worse than they might have been after this ridiculous weather. These officers are risking life and limb by driving on trails with weakened crust. We should all be grateful for their dedication and hope for their safety.

Lachlan has been missing for several days now. If prayer is an option for you, now would be a good time.

Two Firsts

A few skate-skiers pointed out that H, S and B loops might benefit from grooming, so I took out a "bed-frame" with an old Ski-Doo and smoothed those loops. I apologise for not doing this sooner, but I assumed that those loops had been flattened during the mild weather, like M-loop which remains completely ungroomable.

Unfortunately for some, there is now no track on H, S and B. This is a first. I cannot set a track out there on the downhills, which are like M-loop, so there seemed little sense in taking out the track setter. I hope that those who much prefer those loops without a track will enjoy Saturday and then pray for snow, and that the classic skiers are not too inconvenienced.

The second first was that I was able to use a leaf rake to clear needles and twigs off the snow in several places. If I have my druthers, I shall never have to use a leaf rake on snow again!

Life is hard -- so are our trails

Whoever coined that phrase about a rock and a hard place probably skied on our trails recently.

Much experience plus the guidelines that came with the new groomer dictate that it is a serious blunder to try to groom on wet snow, so we did not do that and the snow has now frozen. Our new "Ginzugroomer" is now wired up so that the operator can raise and lower the snow knives and the track setter and I tried out the knives on the power line yesterday. The technique is to take very light cuts to start and gradually lower the knives in subsequent passes. It took me 75 minutes to groom the power line with two passes and the second pass was too deep -- I should have been more gradual in lowering the knives. Because the knife array is less than 1 metre wide, this operation required more than 15 km of driving, all with relatively hard pulling.

Present and former groomers are in agreement that there are still many places on the trails where a knife groomer like ours will stub its toes on rocks and roots, even with very light cuts. This has great potential to seriously damage the groomer and also the snowmobile and the club executive has recommended that we not risk equipment damage.

In addition, there is only so much "life" in the snow. Thus, while the powerline is now quite good for skate skiing, if there is another thaw or damp day, it will end up harder than it was and also harder to groom.

Considering all the factors together, for example the moratorium on high-school ski practices this week and the possibility that there may be more thaws and little more snow before the three races here early in February, I feel it is prudent to leave the trails alone for now. I wish it could be different!

Happy Weekend

All DRXC Deep River east trails have been groomed and trackset as of about 9 a.m. this morning (Sat.). More trees came down during the week, mostly from snow and ice on the branches. D, R, X & C were clear last evening and the skating trails this morning. Skiers should be vigilant in looking far enough ahead to allow time to throw out an anchor and stop if the trail is blocked.

The snow is, however, thin and increasingly crusty. The tracks set last evening and this morning are poorly formed and crumbly, and in hindsight, you may have been better served if I had kept the machines in the garage.

I now have no equipment that can improve the skiing before significantly more snow falls, except perhaps on the powerline ("K-loop") and part of M loop. Since I struck obstacles under the snow on C-loop with the old tracksetter, I will be assessing whether attempting to use the new small groomer has more benefits than risks. It would be unfortunate to damage it seriously so soon after its arrival!

Note that this blog is one way. I did not initially enable return messages from readers, but now that an old friend has promised me a complimentary message, I am tempted. I will post any developments in this direction.

It's still snowing!

D, R, X and C loops were track-set on Sunday. I had a report on Monday that the tracks were already quite hard. I had to cut off and move twenty or twenty-five tall saplings because they were hanging into the trail. Different trees continue to bend over farther and obstruct the trail every day and several people are taking a saw with them to clear the trails as they ski.

Touring skiers are strongly encouraged to give overhanging branches a strong tug as they pass. This usually dislodges the heavy clinging snow and allows the tree to rebound out of the trail.

Yesterday (Tue.), all of M, H, S and B were rolled and trackset. Removal of many obstructions slowed this work. Rolling is new for DRXC and the result looked wonderful. However, the snow did not harden very well, partly because the temperature rose during the day, so the skating trail is patchy-soft and broken up by skiers. The classic track seems better with a firm bottom.

The rocks seem well covered now, but the track-setter was still bouncing on the R-loop corduroy logs. The snow is still quite thin over the high rocks and the saving grace is the layer of wet stuff that fell and froze on boxing day.

Love that snow.

We managed to roll the Kids' area, also called the powerline, and set tracks for Jackrabbits. M, S and B were packed, but H was not touched because of ice-laden branches hanging into the trail. A volunteer will work on the branches today (Sat.). Say thanks to Bruce if you see him. No trails have been track-set since the snowfall.

Grooming effort is limited during this family holiday time and we will confine grooming to late afternoons and evenings during the weekend. If skiers aim to finish by 4 p.m., grooming is easier and the skiing is nicer.

We have some issues to solve as we learn to use the new equipment. In addition, the bulk of our new equipment order will not likely arrive before late February. One of the two new snowmobiles has a fault that requires attention and we are not using it at present. These issues mean that grooming will be slower than ideal.

We will start moving snow by hand into the rough trails, so skiers should not be surprised to find a snowmobile parked to the side of a trail. It is particularly important to ski the trails in the conventional direction during this activity so that we can park the snowmobile in a safe spot.