Don’t Waste It!

Getting the Most Out of what Falls From the Sky

Ok, this is going to be the year that we turn this little trend around. This year we will get the snow we remember from seasons past. If you are involved in Nordic skiing, whether a skier or a trail groomer, you have to be an optimist if you are going to keep your sanity.

On the other hand… Who among us is willing to waste even a flake of snow, anymore?  Here are some strategies that you can use to get the most out of whatever snow you are blessed with:

Prepare the best possible trail base with the resources you have. Start with the easy and obvious stuff – Mow and clear brush, rocks and stumps. When you get to the obstacles that pose a bigger challenge, step back and think before you bring in the dozer. Sometimes it is cheaper and much easier to cover the obstacle with something like wood chips. Sure it would be great to grade the whole trail and seed it in turf, but that may not be economically feasible. And sometimes, once you start to push the dirt around, it is hard to find a place to stop, and often, the grading presents an additional challenge of controlling erosion. If you have a supply of chips and an economical method of spreading them, consider it.

Also, think back to the times last year when the skiing was marginal. What areas melted out first? Can you do something to help shade them? Can you concentrate on smoothing out or covering those areas in wood chips first so if they do melt out, they don’t present such a problem for skiers and their skis?

Do you have areas where the wind always blows your base away? Consider a snow fence. Remember how they work: The area immediately down wind will have increased snow depth, so put your fence just upwind of the trail.

Pack that snow early and often! It is a complete fallacy that snow can be “saved” by leaving it alone. Your snow will always last longer if you compress it into a base. The very best way to pack early season snow is to roll it BEFORE grooming with a drag type implement. A roller will pack snow directly into the trail without displacing  (plowing) any to the side. Your snowmobile is a roller, too – it is just a narrow one. You can do an acceptable job of pre-packing by running your snowmobile around without pulling anything.

Whether you use a conventional roller, or simply run around on the snowmobile, DO wait for enough snow so that you are not churning up dirt, leaves and other stuff into your snow. These foreign objects will simply absorb solar radiation later and melt snow faster.

So, if you use a roller, why even bother use a drag type implement like the Trail Tenderizer? Well, the main advantage of a roller, packing snow into the trail without displacing any to the side, is also ultimately a disadvantage. A roller does not level the trail at all. Every undulation remains when rolled. Eventually these build into dips and moguls that lower the quality of the trail. A drag type implement will knock off the high points and deposit snow in the low points. A roller is best used in conjunction with a finish tool like the Trail Tenderizer.

Get the most out of a storm. Many times a snowfall will be accompanied with wind. If you groom the snow as it is coming down, you will be less likely to lose the snow to the wind that often follows. If you are using a deep ribbed roller, you can even gain base this way, because the blowing snow will drift back into the grooved pattern left by the roller, leaving you with more snow on the trail than in the woods next to it.

Groom more often, but do it more efficiently. An example: A basic skating/classic trail needs to be about 10’ wide, minimum, for skaters and striders to co-exist. But let’s say that you have trails that you like to groom much wider. Consider grooming more frequently, but only to the 10’ width. BUT, ALTERNATE SIDES EACH TIME, so that you are maintaining a base across the full width of the trail. That way you will always have a freshly groomed trail to the minimum width, and the rest of the trail width will still be firm and skiable, giving skiers a place to go to get out of each other’s way when they need to. I believe that you will find most skiers would prefer this freshly groomed minimum width preferable to a wider trail that is groomed less often.

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Selecting a Snowmobile

The Best Grooming Machines

Face it - the modern snowmobile is not optimally designed to pull a trail-grooming implement. But, in general, it is probably the best machine available for the money. Some of our customers have been using ATV machines with various combinations of tracks and low-pressure tires, but these have limitations, too. One trap that many trail groomers have fallen into in the past is getting excited about some new whiz bang machine that may indeed be better suited to pulling, but doesn’t have the market support to become a stable product with available parts and people who know how to fix them when they eventually break. Just look in any veteran trail groomer’s barn to see examples of this. So even though the modern snowmobile is designed to go 50-90 mph, has very poor low-end torque, stinks, is noisy, and can be hard to turn (see our New Products section for a better turning solution) it still gets our vote as the most cost effective “tractor”. Here are some things to consider when looking for a snowmobile to pull your grooming implement:

In general, you want the most power and lowest gear ratio you can get. Features that will make ski trail grooming easier include a gearbox with a low range, reverse gear, heavy-duty hitch and grip/thumb warmers.

Implements like our Packer/Tracker and Roller can be pulled with just about any size snowmobile on most terrain (extremely steep may require a larger snowmobile). Our four-foot Trail Tenderizer can be pulled by a medium size snowmobile on moderate terrain (steep terrain will require a large work/utility snowmobile). Our six foot Trail Tenderizers will require a large work/utility snowmobile.

Ok, now I am going to make some snowmobile dealers mad: Because of the low operating speed at which you will be grooming, you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT A LIQUID COOLED SNOWMOBILE. Unfortunately for those of us grooming ski trails, these have become popular in the last few years with the mainstream snowmobile market, and for good reason: At normal operating speeds (15 mph and above) these liquid cooled machines provide more horsepower, are quieter, and last longer due to more even temperature distribution than the traditional fan cooled machine. However, they  rely on a spray of snow from the track upon a heat exchanger. At the very low operating speeds that ski trail-grooming demands (5-10 mph), this spray of snow does not occur. When you don’t have the snow to cool the heat exchanger, the liquid cooled machine over heats in very short order. Please don’t let a dealer talk you into buying a liquid cooled snowmobile. We have not heard of a model yet that works well grooming ski trails. If you are stuck with an LC machine, some techniques that will help you get by include packing your foot beds with snow (there are usually heat exchangers under them), unhitching when you overheat and zipping around the meadow at high speed, and keeping your pulling load at a minimum (less aggressive tooth depth).

As far as recommending specific new snowmobile brands and models, the Ski Doo Skandic (Wide Track or Super Wide Track) is by far the most popular new work/utility machine with our customers. A few of our customers have the Yamaha VK540, also with good feedback. There is a now a very large double track machine called the Alpina being distributed in the US, and we would love to hear from customers that have had success with this or any other pulling machine. We base our recommendations purely on the feedback we get from our customers out there grooming trails and have absolutely no affiliation with a particular brand.

One final tip for anyone considering buying a new utility/work snowmobile: The market is miniscule for these units. A typical dealer may only sell one or two of these in a season. Go in early and reserve what you want, or you may be disappointed. You are very unlikely to walk in and find one of these machines on a showroom floor.

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Kids Want to Play

Grooming a Ski Park

My wife, Karen, and I have been running a Nordic skiing program for elementary age kids for about seven years now.  Prior to that we both coached Minnesota high school teams. Along the way, we have come to believe that the most effective way to teach kids Nordic skiing skills is to do it without their knowledge.

I am also thoroughly convinced that the Euros dominate the sport in world competition partly because they have a general comfort level on their skis that is unmatched – a direct result of learning, at an early age, how to have fun on their skis.

When we first started the kids program, we found that some of the most popular activities included goofing around on the little hill near the Nordic Center, and playing sharks and minnows on the widest trail we could find. Right away we started grooming a flat area that we call the “soccer field” just so we could keep the kids from blocking the trails while they played their games. Soccer is actually one of the games we play, with one ski and no poles. The kids “scooter” around and kick the ball with their free foot, all the while learning to kick and glide without anyone actually telling them how to do it.

A flat play area like this is easy to groom, and if you have ever watched hockey and dreamed of being the Zamboni driver like I have, you already know how. Just make an oval, turning the tightest radius at each end that you can. Keep moving the oval over one groomer width with each pass until you have covered in the center area of the oval you started with.

Two years ago, we also started grooming what we call our “terrain park”. This varies somewhat with our imagination and available materials, but basically consists of the following: A short, but very circuitous, single classic trail through the woods with lots of tight turns and little ups and downs. We usually have some “hoops” made from ½” black poly tubing set up on one or more of the down hills that the kids like to “limbo” through.

We usually have a gentle open down hill area that we build some jumps on. We also have a “king of the hill” that we make by piling snow, which usually means that it isn’t very high until at least January. I am considering making a wood chip pile this year so that it is usable with minimal snow.

Other props include some snow fencing that we make into a “maze”, poles for slalom gates, and traffic cones that are useful in setting up relays and defining game boundaries. Finally, a bunch of parallel classic tracks are great for races and relays.

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