Over and Out

DRXC has a new Head Groomer and a new blog site that describes club trails.  This link will no longer publish DRXC trail conditions.  I have spent several minutes trying to find out how to add a link here to the new blog and I give up.  Please erase your personal copy of the link to this site and refer to the main DRXC website for the current address.

To readers who have followed this site and passed on their personal appreciation to the unpublicized but not secret author, your words of support mean a lot to me.  Thank you.

I am considering publishing some thoughts about grooming XC trails.  If I do so here, I will ask the new blog master to notify you.

For the present, goodbye, over and out.

Equipment damage, grooming suspended.

The light of day has revealed significant damage to one of the rollers.  The light of reason indicates that further grooming risks more equipment damage and very limited benefit.

What you see is what you got, namely rock skis and over-skied snow.  K, M and the high-school loop were rolled Monday, Dec. 9.  A poor set track from the same date may still be discernable on little-M and D-loop.

Think snow.

Rough and not ready

Grooming remains experimental and the results indicate that there is still insufficient snow to set a track.  We are expanding the grooming bit by bit as snow accumulates.

M, the high-school loop and K have been packed with rollers.  D-loop and little-M have a poor set track.  R, X and C have been skied regularly by a few keeners, but conditions are still poor.  Status of S and B is unknown, but experience says that they are still very rough and hazardous.

New season, new beginning

Another winter, another ski season.  For the second time in living memory, we got MORE snow than forecast.  Scary or what.

As an experiment, the indestructible track setter was driven, very slowly, around little-M, K and D.  The  snowmobile skis hit ground innumerable times and the track setter snagged seriously on obstacles several times.  The depth of compacted snow is less than 2 cm.  K was also rolled, but an impressive display of stubble appeared in the east half.

If you want to try skiing, use your oldest skis and expect one ski or the other to grab some ground or deflect off a root at any time.

Just one more good day...

Volunteers took the rollers around the skate loops Thursday evening (March 21).  No track setting was done then or since.  The result on Friday was about 30 mm, just a little over an inch, of semi-firm snow on top of that terrible smooth, hard ice.  I trust that this provided one more good day of skate skiing as hoped for.

With the present forecast of several days of yo-yo temperatures, all the snow on the ground will be progressively transformed into ice.  Conditions will change from sun to shade, from hour to hour and from day to day.  Every day, you will need to look up a different few from the dozens of Inuit words for snow to describe what is on the same ground.  No grooming will be possible without a lot of new snow and cold.

With any luck, we may even get a general strong crust and be able to ski easily absolutely everywhere.  It has been many years since this miracle has happened here.

Hard and fast

Hard and fast skiing, that is.  All the trails have been groomed, but driving heavy machines on icy snow has revealed the true nature of ice.  Don't say you haven't been warned.

For even more fun, you may wish to experience the pre-grooming conditions by skiing off the trail -- at slow speed only.

YUK, thaw weather

Aside from the crummy skiing and tough grooming......

You will remember (!) that driving grooming machines on wet or damp snow makes an impossible mess that terminates skiing and grooming until the next major snowfall.  A lot of skiing on wet or damp snow is equally terminal, but the new wet snow is heavy enough that this is unlikely.

Thus, the first opportunity to groom again is looking like Friday morning.  We are supposed to groom a short skate/classic course for the Club Championships on Saturday, and hopefully we can get the whole trail system up for the weekend.

Short and sweet

All the trails are snow-covered and have fresh grooming.  It's still nice snow if you hurry.

Two snowfalls and a Spoon later

Everything was groomed today and conditions are nearly perfect cold snow.  There is some granular ice mixed in with the snow, so you will likely lose wax if you ski a long way.

Someone took a dog on the river loops today.  The damage to the track had to be seen to be imagined.  This amount of damage makes for very unpleasant skiing and is extremely discourteous at the very least.  Club policy is that dogs should be kept off the groomed trails.

To groom or not to groom

...that is the question.  The answer is to wait until after the thaw predicted for Monday.  Until then, please enjoy two more days of excellent classic skiing.

And now, if you are not into nitty-gritties, please stop reading and go ski.

Several considerations affect the decision of when to groom.  While the classic track on D-R-X-C-M is very fine, the skate areas still have ungoomed snow on top.   Here's the thing...
 - Friday's snowfall was rather small, about one inch after compaction
 - skate-skiing in this amount of new snow is really fun
 - skate grooming will inevitably drag up lots of the ice which is lurking just below
 - the classic track on the skate loops is still very good
 - orienteering activity (Feb. 10) normally does far more than its fair share of damage to the grooming
 - rainfall (Feb. 11?) is deadly on compacted snow, far less so in new snow
 - the head groomer is totally exhausted from 18 hours of slugging in two days
 - one of the two club snowmobiles is down for the count & unserviceable.

Now, go ski.

Silver Spoon week

Skiers are still reporting "surprisingly good" skiing.  This is attributable to the decision to leave the last snowfall ungroomed until after the predicted rain, so that we had something to work with on the trails after the rain and thaw.  The skiffles of snow during the week have also helped a lot.

Even if the skiing had been poor all week, we would likely have suspended grooming.  This is because we will be able to set a track in this granular snow only once more, with a great deal of work, and Silver Spoon is given priority.  The amount of snow that is predicted is unfortunately too little to help much, but maybe we will be lucky.

And now, B-loop too

B-loop was groomed for classic & skate skiing today.  There are large lumps of ice in several places where we removed large windfall tree trunks.  We groomed over the ice so it is not very visible, but you will certainly feel it underfoot.  As mentioned recently, the dips and humps are still prominent on B-loop, as on H and S, so high speeds come with a rough ride.

Quick & dirty

The title describes the trails, not the grooming process, which was laborious.  The crunchy snow was barely groomable, especially where many skiers had skied in the wet.

D, R, X & C have a new track that one brave skier described as "fantastic".  That may have referred to sheer terror from high speed.  At least the copious litter has been stirred into the crystaline snow so it is not a problem.  The track is very abrasive and will become rock hard very soon.

K, M, H & S have also been groomed for skating and classic skiing.  B is ungroomed and the exit is blocked by a largish smashed tree trunk.  B likely has other windfalls as well, so be very cautious.  The snowmobile was labouring heavily to negotiate the hills on H and S and it was deemed foolhardy to attempt those on B, especially when only a handful of skiers in town can safely handle those lumpy hills at high speed.

Keeping the fast, icy snow in mind, best enjoy the trails soon, because this type of snow often permits only one grooming.

Crunch time

The "snow" is now becoming crunchy, but it takes time for the cold to penetrate below the surface.  In case you missed it, it was still raining quite hard at 0300h (3 a.m.!) this morning.  What is not obvious to the eye is the water still running under the snow and waiting in  large puddles for foolhardy groomers to break through and make a huge mess.  After a day or two of freezing temperatures, we will see if anything useful can be done.  Don't hold your breath.

Holy razor blades, Batman...

that was a close shave.  Last night, it rained much more than anyone forecast -- YIKES.

To make the crusty new snow useable, some additional grooming was done this morning on M and parts of S and H, for skating and classic skiing.  S-loop is so bumpy now that I am recommending extreme caution there.  S and B should be strictly out-of-bounds for all but expert skiers.

Got snow....sort of

After the snowfall tapered off this morning, the skate areas were rolled and K was track set.  There was a chorus of crunching sounds as this was done.  There are deep potholes on H and B from the recent rainfall.

A track will be set everywhere later today after the skier traffic decreases.

Bring your ice skates, pray for snow

The DRXC trails are suitable only for ice skating, but this is not recommended.  No grooming equipment we have will make any impression on the glassy ice and XC skis will be extremely hard to control.  Reports are that there is a lot of debris on the trails, and the tiny dusting of new snow has made this hard to see.

FYI, Mount Martin SC is closed and PAXC had no skiing late yesterday.  The loss of snow in Ottawa during the week of thaw and rain has to be seen to be imagined.  Two weeks ago, Ottawa had about 50 cm of fresh snow on top of the crust and they now have even less on the ground than we do!

Wet is bad and sad

There can be no trail grooming until we get some new, dry snow.  Setting a track is already impossible in the hard-frozen snow on most of the loops and the predicted consecutive thaw days will make this situation worse.  So sorry.

Snow is beautiful, not to mention fun!

There has been a little new snow and we groomed everything today, so the trails are as good as possible.  The crust is precious thin on top of the bumps and it is so hard that we couldn't pulverize it even if we wanted to.  So, you skiers have a newly set track of sorts in a bit of new snow everywhere, but don't expect mid-season skiing.  Enjoy every bump -- they are ALL very obvious!

Happy New Year

Reports are that the real snow on top of the crust is still fun, but getting skied off, notably on R-loop.  Since the crust is still covering the rocks, it makes little sense to disturb it now as it is precious thin.  Best to wait for snow, presently in the forecast for Thursday.