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.
