Wet snow, then freeze-up

You can still enjoy excellent trail conditions today, but the forecast is for snow, thaw and rain later in the week.  Since we (or anyone else) cannot groom wet snow sucessfully, the plan at present is to leave the predicted snowfall today and tomorrow alone until after the temperature falls and drys out the trails. 
Skiers can therefore expect some, perhaps "a lot", of ungroomed snow, later wet, on the trails from tomorrow into Saturday.  The intention is to have snow instead of ice to work with by Sunday or so.

Yo-yo weather

All of DRXC's trails were groomed last evening for the second time in a week. The intention was to provide another couple days of superb mid-winter conditions before the yo-yo goes up again. Enjoy.

Icy and fast

Re-setting the classic track is estimated to require unreasonable effort, i.e. many, many passes with the ice busters.  Even then, the loose ice granules never really freeze together properly afterward.  Grooming will therefore be on hold until additional snow falls and everything freezes.

So, all loops except H have a hard, fast classic track.  The skate loops are also hard and fast, but manageable.

Go skiing, and hurry.

All trails are open and conditions are excellent.  With the forecast of 3 days of thaw, urgency is in order.

This morning, we set a classic track everywhere except C-loop, which still has an excellent Silver Spoon track, and H-loop.  H-loop is not wide enough for skate-skiing when it also has a classic track, so the skaters have been granted a reprieve this week.  B-loop looked unlikely to benefit from skate grooming and was left as is.  Later and too late for skate grooming, we noticed that the orienteering crowd had snow-ploughed down "The Wall" and other hills and left ridges of snow in awkward places.  If you are a skater and you object to this abuse of the trail, please join me in making sure the club executive know your view.

It is hazardous to ski the trails in the reverse direction and against club policy.  It is likely that the club does not publicize this policy sufficiently.  Ski teachers especially should emphazise skiing in the clockwise direction on all loops and e.g. never practice downhill techniques in the backward direction.  The small circuit up S from Cox's Corner to The Top and down H to the link back to S is perfect for hill instruction, with only the very short right turn off S to return to Cox's.

I mispoke

Upon venturing out today to enjoy the wonderful classic track I described in the previous posting, I had a surprise.  There was an excellent track from the hospital down R and X to C and all around C.  It was certainly a pleasure to have a really fine ski on C-loop, a rarity in recent years.
On the home legs of X and R, the club snomobile had mashed the track pretty severely, an annual Silver Spoon ritual to recover the dozens of race signs from the trails.  It was a relief to get back on a good track on D-loop, but the first downhill on M was trampled -- orienteering again.  The trampling continued off and on all the way to Henry's Hollow and then the track was especially bad on the bridge and its approaches.  I soon realized that a recreational snowmobile had driven on the track and severe damage was essentially continuous from the first bridge right round to the height of K where I could see the snowmobile track entering M-loop.

So my glowing description of the track in the previous posting was already in error when I wrote it.  The track we spent days preparing was 60% smushed in about 24 hours.  I understand I am supposed try to be more positive here, but with those facts .........

The Silver Spoon, forty and counting

The DRXC trails have borne the strides of some 300 skiers once again in the fortieth annual Silver Spoon race.  Following the two thaw days of the week, the grooming team put at least 85 km on the two big snowmobiles on Friday to prepare the ice/snow mixture, which has surprisingly little evidence of the ice chips that are everywhere.

D, R, X, C and M loops are now in the best condition of the season with a good, "polished" classic track.
M-loop is not ideal for skate skiing, but the width is there.  S, H and B are groomed for skate-skiing only, with no classic track.  We shall attempt to restore MSHB to the normal configuration gradually through the coming week.  The very dense crust on M-loop is becoming more and more difficult to make any impression on.

How quickly plans change

We have been scuppered by the weather, namely a thaw today that was not forecast yesterday.  Both of my outside thermometers read zero C at 0655 this morning while the Environment Canada reading at Petawawa at 6 a.m. was apparently minus 7 C.  What is wrong with this picture???

This thaw means that all bets are off regarding skiing and trail grooming for the rest of the week.  The two races and the grooming goals posted here yesterday are still in play, but after today it may take hours of ice busting to accomplish any of the grooming tasks that need to be done.  Hopefully the ice will be bustable!

What you see on the trails is what you get.

Trail grooming during Silver Spoon week

The MacKenzie Invitational Ski Meet is scheduled for Wed., Feb. 8 and the 40th annual Silver Spoon Ski Fest for Sat., Feb. 11.  Because of grooming for these two races, club skiers will find the classic track progressively disrupted as follows

M, S, H and B loops :
Monday, minor breaks in the track;
Tuesday, later in the day, gradual complete erasure of the classic track;
Wednesday, no classic track and lotsa young people all over the place;
Thursday, gradual reappearance of classic track, depending on other demands on groomers and equipment and also on snow conditions.

D, R, X and C loops :
Wed., Thu. & Fri., deteriorating track caused by trail work like brushing and race sign & barricade placement;
Late Friday, final track setting for Saturday.

Sunday will be a rest day for grooming personnel.

Fabulous skiing

By all accounts, the skiing today was excellent, to some the best in many years, on all DRXC trails.  The predicted high of zero C tomorrow (Friday) may result in a hard track for the weekend, but skiing should still be very good for several days.

UGH -- wet

Short message:  no grooming in wet snow today, Wed., Feb. 1.  It is much better for the trails if no one skis on the wet snow either. 

Tomorrow, we will attempt to groom all the trails, so the track will be wiped out for some hours everywhere.

Long message: ditto.