Is it over?

My tongue is permanently bitten as usual at this season. Many people assume everyone is happy to see the snow melting. I long to say, "You obviously do not go outside all winter anyway, why would you care?" There, now you can say it for me.

There follow some truths about grooming ski trails.

The DRXC snowmobiles rely on loose snow for engine cooling -- the moving drive track has to throw snow up onto a cooling panel in the top of the track box. The snowmobiles also rely on loose snow to lubricate the "sliders", two tough plastic (?) bars that carry most of the weight of the machine on the track under them. If you think of the track as a roadway that is laid down as the machine moves along, the sliders perform exactly like the runners on a snow sled.

As for the "snow", at -8 degrees this morning, the surface of the trails is glassy but rough. Grooming this stuff is like driving in broken glass. It is an extremely tough pull, which makes the machines use a lot of gas, which leads to a lot of waste heat and a lot of down force on the sliders. You can see where this is leading if I point out that icy snow does not fly about under the machine basically at all.

All of this applies to skate skiing. If you want grooves for classic skiing, you can't get there from here. As they reputedly say in New York, "fuggedaboudit". (Look it up on Google.)

As for the skiing, the crunched-up snow is not fun to ski on until the sun softens it and it gets water in it. So, as the sun goes down and the skiers leave (mostly!), lots of ruts are left to freeze overnight, and it all has to be repeated the next day, presuming the motors are not seized from over heating.

I think maybe the trails are toast for another year.

Some of us enjoy finding a large expanse of crust somewhere and skiing on that. Crust skiing, especially skating, can be exhilarating, but my crust testing says that the crust is still weak, especially in the sun. If it is not obvious, be warned that it smarts if you break through the crust at speed.

Happy spring, everyone.

Great snow, poor timing.

After 12.5 man-hours of hard slogging, the new snow is groomed on D, R, X, C, M, S (to The Top), H and K. One 450kg snowmobile fell off the edge of the track into the deep snow three times and there were many large boughs across the river loops, mainly on C. For comparison, it takes about 3 man-hours to groom these trails in "normal" conditions.

The intention was to salvage as much of the weekend skiing as possible given that we could not groom yesterday. The afternoon skiers were the happy beneficiaries.

We had significant traction problems on H and decided not to attempt the steep hills on S and B for now. Hopefully soon.

It snowed again -- just in time for winter.

A large snowfall. It has been so many years, I thought Nature had forgotten how.

Wet snow is not groomable, so we have to wait until the temperature drops for a few hours, which probably means tomorrow morning.

Later....

It snowed again -- sort of.

We ran the track setter around all of our trails this evening. This is a first for this season! There is only about half-enough new snow to make a good track, but we did not turn up much ice, so klister wax should not be necessary. (Don't quote me!) We also rolled M, H and S for skating.

Everything is very hard underneath the new snow. C and S are barely civilized and B is ridiculously bumpy.

There it was -- gone.

This morning, it is a challenge to write positive sentences. The Jackrabbit program is in the process of being cancelled for today. The wind chill is -22C, the snow is still very wet under the surface and the blowing snow will immediately wipe out any benefits of grooming -- if wet snow were groomable in the first place.

And so, the best skiing for 20 years on the DRXC trails lasted just about one week. Not very many skiers were here to experience it.

Grooming will proceed in stages as personnel and conditions permit.

Peaceful skiing, beautiful clear days

M, H and S have now been restored to service for classic + skate skiers. H is reasonably flat, but S is still extremely bumpy with unexpected soft spots because of the very uneven ground underneath the snow. B is still ungroomed and it also is extremely rough. The surface water trouble spots seem to be frozen at last, but there are only 2 or 3 cm of fluffy snow on top of the ice. We may attempt to open B-loop this week.

D, R and X still have the excellent Silver Spoon track with this week's new snow on top and further grooming will not improve the skiing. If it snows some more, a new track will be set. C-loop still cannot be set with the new grooming equipment. If some helpers can be convinced to come out and shovel for most of a day, we may be able to subdue this pesky loop. No promises.

In view of the predicted several days with above-zero daytime highs and the very small number of skiers this week, the skiing will probably last longer with minimum grooming -- better to leave some fluffy snow around to groom on top of the boiler plate.

A brief update

The Silver Spoon Ski Fest and orienteering events have now run their courses and the trails are in many respects as good as they get. The tracks on D, R and X are heavily used, but appear to be in very good condition. C-loop remains skied only and not track-set recently, but is reported to be quite friendly and fun.

M-loop has the Silver Spoon classic track on "best racing line"; translated, the track is on average in the middle of the trail and cuts the corners gently. Very short sections of the track have been crushed by the team that retrieved the race signs, not much of a problem in general, and most of the track is like new. The bottom of the M-loop track is glazed and will be very hard after the temperature drops. M-loop is, at last, much smoother than previously and skate-skiing is as good as it gets except for the placement of the classic track.

The first ascent on S-loop and the first descent on H-loop remain in excellent skating condition with no classic track. The back sections of S and H have the recent snowfall relatively intact, with a reasonable classic track, but deep-snow skating. B remains ungroomed.

Had the weekend's temperature been colder, additional grooming would have been possible today. Since it is very detrimental to drive the machines on damp or wet snow, grooming will resume over the coming week on cold snow.

Is it REALLY snowing?

The snow is coming at a really awkward time, but someone said "Nature is a Mother".

The Mackenzie High School Invitational (skate-ski) race goes on M, S, H and K loops tomorrow from 0900h until 1400h. There will be mobs of young people having fun around the chalet and many vehicles on the road until mid-afternoon. (This race was postponed from today, Feb.2, because of a school bus snow day.) In addition, signage for the Silver Spoon race will go out on the trails tomorrow and/or Friday, which will cause minor inconvenience to touring skiers.

M-loop has no track now and will not have one until late Friday. Apologies for this, but M is so rough that nasty things are still not well covered and experience tells us that we will only get one chance to set a track.

D, R and X loops are in the best condition for years right now, but will not be groomed up again until late Friday.

DRXC members and others are respectfully requested to keep strictly off freshly set tracks on the race course from late Friday afternoon until Saturday morning.

If you are one of those people who think that fresh snow on a ski trail is heaven, you are in luck.

The best yet

For the first time this season, I think you can probably use good skis! The steady light snowfall has transformed the trails and there is more good quality track than bad, a welcome change. Note that there were definitely obstacles that the track setter hit, but only 3 or 4 in total and all were rather gentle. A skier reported rocks on M and H skate trails, but the roller did not find them.

D, R, X, M, H and S have classic tracks. M and H have good skating snow and S has been rolled wide for the first time. This grooming required 5 km to roll K, 15 km of skate track rolling and 19 km of track setting.

S is still extremely bumpy because of subsidence over running water and has to be called dangerous for everyone.

B and C were not groomed. C is still too thin to groom near the river and B still has large washed-out areas with no snow on the ground.

Enjoy!

Thicker still

Yesterday's snowfall added several centimetres and the depth of new snow for the week appears to be approx. 15 cm. I set 15 km of classic track and rolled 5 km of the skating trails plus K. For the statisticians, this grooming required 33 km of driving. 6 km of the driving was for K alone.

D, R, X, M, H and S are trackset. M and H have been rolled wide and S was rolled single pass. B and C were not groomed.

The grooming implements still hit ground on every loop, even with non-agressive grooming.

S is still not recommended because it remains seriously bumpy. The main reason it was rolled once was to make it driveable in the event of enough additional snow. B is much more bumpy than S and will require a major snowfall, or an army of shovellers.

C was not groomed because the previous work there did more damage to the track-setter than any other single usage.

Thicker again -- a little.

Deep River and area skiers turned out in their usual enthusiastic numbers to enjoy the new snow yesterday. The best estimate of depth of fluffy new snow is 6 cm. A soft track was set everywhere but B this morning, but there is still not enough fine-grained snow on top of the ice for the track setter to work properly.

S-loop is crazy rough and is definitely "Ski at your own risk". B remains ungroomed, with the same warning. The principal reason for the roughness on S and B is the persistence of washouts, some of which are in very hazardous locations. Water is still running under the snow and new washouts can appear at any time, from one day to the next and even just as you start to ski over one!

The grooming uncovered rocks and roots on all trails, especially C-loop.

Many skiers still do not appreciate that newly groomed snow requires hours to set up. Think of it like putting mud on wallboard -- you have to leave it alone for a few hours. So, I apologise to Anne and Diane, who understandably did not like me to curtail their Saturday morning ski, but I had no other time to do that small job for the afternoon Jackrabbit group. As it happened, the snow never did set up properly that day, so the K area was still mushy at 4 p.m.

Some days are worse than others. Murphy said it best: "The best laid plans of mice and men ............... are roughly equal.

Thinner still.

All DRXC trails are now ungroomable. The predictions for "up to" 10 cm of snow should salvage this weekend, but 10 cm is a useless skiffle as far as grooming is concerned.

M and H loops now have rocks appearing like magic, so old skis are definitely recommended. The M-loop downhill is scraped off by snow-plowing and speed control is only possible without skis. Walk off to the side of the prepared snow in the untouched snow; snow cover is not deep enough to make walking difficult. At any time, snow-plowing may uncover a rock or root on the M hill and personal injury from tripping at speed is a distinct possibility.

The snow on the bridges is thinner than everywhere else. There should be NO SKATING on any bridge. Once the bridge cover starts to break, the danger of a fall into the stream will be dramatically higher and there is more than enough fast-moving water to drown someone.

Thinner and thinner......

I attempted to set a better track in the new snow on the smoother trails: K R X D M up S and down H. The track looked much better than it was, but at least the ice and needles are covered up for now. By the end of the day, the track was very shallow everywhere. Further track setting may be impossible -- no one should hold his/her breath about that!

Skiing on the new snow was as magical as always, but the skier traffic was up to Deep River's usual high standard and everything will be very hard by Sunday. Trail cover is now approximately 10 cm of white ice covered by 1 cm of compressed new snow. A few rocks on M and S have no ice cover and are not always visible. Any high spot certainly has something besides snow somewhere underneath it and less than 2 cm down.

The S downhill is snow-plowed off and far too bumpy to be safe in these snow conditions. Skiers at all levels of competence risk serious injury if they ski there. C has "about 100" rocks covered only by the new snow, or not! B is ungroomed and hazardous.

Dance for snow. Bring back suitcases of snow from your ski trips. No contribution is too small.

Not too bad, considering!

The title is a quote from our DRXC past president earlier today.

In summary, the classic track is still quite skiable, although very hard underneath and rather shallow. The little bit of fresh snow has covered up the forest debris, but it has also obscured the high spots that are even more prominent after the thaw. My judgement says that I cannot improve the classic track, and so I will leave it alone. The C-loop rocks are reportedly standing tall, in which case there are more just under the surface.

I scratched up the skate snow on K and little M, including M-extension, and I turned up sand in four spots on K. I drove about 25 km to accomplish this and the base is still extremely hard and slick. One intrepid young skier was skating around M-loop over and over this morning, so it must be tolerable or better. The teeth on the Trail Tenderizer are already showing several dings, so I am planning to wait for a little more snow before I tenderize M any further.