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!
