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| Ice storm aftermath; tough grooming | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 27 2009, 08:33 AM (1,211 Views) | |
| Steve.M | Dec 27 2009, 08:33 AM Post #1 |
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So I tackled the post-Christmas Eve, Christmas day storm aftermath on our trail system. After too much driving, too much holiday eats and too much sitting around, I was more than ready to start grooming. These were tough conditions as I started early am Saturday. We had gotten about 3" of wet slushy snow Christmas eve, frozen now, then a day of rain, sleet, rain, snow, rain and finally ending with snow. The rain left a thick ice crust under 1" of powder. Time to dive in. Used the Ginzu and Grizzly- the Grizzly and Ginzu would ride ontop of the crust...most of the time, but other times break thru. Of course, there had been some snowhoers out on the ski trails during the wet slushy conditions, so now all that was a frozen mess. Sooo, teeth down a little to try and fix that. I ended up with a lot of cookie ice, -ice chucks cookie size that scatters everywhere while grooming. The Ginzu had a hard time pulverizing that on the first two passes. Luckily, the powder on top helped smooth things out. Setting track was really hard-some places it was good-others, just too shallow and couldn't cut thru the crust below. I put extra weight on the tracksetter to help things out. Finished up and let everything settle for 2 hours. Pulled out the G2 then and made an additional pass on the skate lane. That helped a lot-the cookie ice was getting chopped smaller and the wider cutting bar and longer length of the G2 flattens and levels out the trail really well. I really like the G2 for that reason. I did have to close one trail, that has some low spots because of flooding-the adjacent swamps were filled with water and had flowed under the ski trail snow-so of course, while grooming, I didn't see it and broke thru into that slush mess. Luckily, even setting track and having the teeth slightly down, I was able to plow thru it and get myself out-whew. Will have to re-groom that when it freezes down again. Finally skied myself and it wasn't bad-just noisy skating on all that chopped ice....can't wait for a nice 2 or 3" snowfall to get things all settled back to normal. |
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| arly | Dec 27 2009, 09:44 AM Post #2 |
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We just got back last night and seen that we had received a little rain as well, so everything here is crusted over too. What we’ve done in the past is take the drag out and skim over the crust a few times, maybe once, twice or more depending on the thickness or stiffness of the crust. This grinds it up enough that we can follow with the ginsu and leave reasonably good corduroy and tracks. Over the holidays we skied at Wolverine trials, near Ironwood MI and seen the Grizzly with Matt tracks they acquired this fall and heard how they liked it. We used to live there and groom these trails. We spent the Christmas holiday in Ely MN and skied there trails which were pretty good, despite low snow. Glad you got your trails ground back into shape. |
| http://keweenawnordic.org/ [/url] keweenawnordicskiclub.blogspot.com [/url] | |
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| semntrails | Dec 27 2009, 04:42 PM Post #3 |
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We had much the same - mostly rain and sleet, not much snow. The trails were groomed twice with the Ginzu yesterday - with much of the same results, lots of ice balls and not the best for skiing but ok. This morning I went out with our 'green drag' and ran around several times then went around with the Ginzu trails are nice, pretty smooth and good skiing again. Our trails are open to skiing, walking, snowshoeing, dogs, just about anything so we end up with a lot of frozen foot steps. The green drag does a great job of cutting them out. I also got to try grooming with a 4' wide tidd-tech at another park yesterday, nothing piston adjustable, you have to get off the snowmobile and adjust teeth hight, raise/lower track setter, etc.- sure glad we have the Ginzu. Trying to chop up ice and get a nice skate trail with that Tidd Tech was an exercise in futility. |
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| Steve.M | Dec 27 2009, 08:02 PM Post #4 |
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Used Tidd tech "trail tenderizers" (and home made versions) for many years-I think we bought 4 over the years, plus the 8 footer for the track truck, and using the Ginzu and G2 are worlds better. That said, the TTs were so nice to use compared to bedsprings! |
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| skier2 | Dec 27 2009, 08:22 PM Post #5 |
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vvvv
Edited by skier2, Apr 8 2011, 04:44 PM.
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| air19 | Dec 27 2009, 09:58 PM Post #6 |
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I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. On Saturday night we had 30 to 50 mph winds, and all day today we had 35 degrees and rain. Tomorrow it goes back down to 10 degrees, but I can imagine the mess that will be waiting for me. |
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| Steve.M | Dec 28 2009, 07:00 AM Post #7 |
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air-those are exactly the conditions we had a few days ago here in Wisconsin-moved on to you I guess! Good luck.....I'm headed out to re-open the flooded trail, the adjacent swamps should be lower and water under the trail base should be frozen down. Wish I had a tiller! mazzurj- tell us again why there are two G2s in storage and you're only allowed to use an old TT? I don't get that one! You photo looked like our trails also-constant hopping off to pick up sticks
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| skier2 | Dec 28 2009, 09:20 AM Post #8 |
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deleted Edited by skier2, Apr 8 2011, 04:45 PM.
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| Steve.M | Dec 28 2009, 07:35 PM Post #9 |
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Iyiyi! That is tough dealing with those guys-I feel your pain. Too bad the consessionaire doesn't know his **** from _______. The G2 will pull much easier than a old TT with teeth down-jeepers! There is so much more control of the cutting pressure, plus the "electrics" help to feather cutting while grooming. He's losing $$$ big time-IF the trails are groomed well, more people will ski, he makes more $$$. We have some State parks here in Wis. that have passionate State paid groomers, and they have very busy parks, other state parks, with great trails (one near me) have lackluster grooming, so people skip it and go to our county trail (volunteer groomers). I can tell you are very frustrated, and it sounds like nothing will change until his contract is up. I thought the old, (1990s) skate vs. stride battle was over? Maybe not for you? We groom for both and really don't have "hiways" for trails...we just make it work. Of course, you can get skate lanes ready on much less snow than classic, but I think most groomers here, take pride in having a nice looking set of classic tracks...sometimes the hardest thing to do. Good luck there! |
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| Glide | Dec 28 2009, 08:24 PM Post #10 |
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ADK Nordic
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Mazurrj...you need to get away from that place and start your own gig. Thats what I did. The man you're dealing with sounds out of loop on grooming and getting folks to ski there. Mine is not for profit but perhaps you could groom a local farm or golf course to start and charge a small fee. |
| Glide | |
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| skier2 | Dec 29 2009, 07:16 PM Post #11 |
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deleted
Edited by skier2, Apr 8 2011, 04:46 PM.
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| mntrails | Jan 1 2010, 12:58 PM Post #12 |
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Over the Christmas holidays, we ended up with 5.5" of snow and an inch of rain. We too ended up with a thick crust of snow/ice on top of about 8-9" of snow. We used a weighted metal ladder drag with teeth to break up the crust on both our trails, then went around with the Ginzus to pack, comb and set track. Three seasons ago, we had similar conditions. We went out with the Ginzu and the ice ripped several pieces of the curved comb from the pan of the Ginzu off. We found a couple on the trail, and had to order replacements. The originals had been installed with 3/4" panhead screws, the replacement screws were 1" panhead screws. So now when we have ice, or when we have a thaw/freeze that results in frozen slush footprints and ski ruts, we always scarify with the toothed ladder drags first to level out the bumps or break the ice first. Yes, it's another step in the process but the results are well worth it and no repairs out in the cold! |
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| Steve.M | Jan 2 2010, 09:06 AM Post #13 |
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I know it was the ice crust that probably had torn the hard plastic combs off-three in one session! We had some older ones (red colored) that had to be replaced on our earlier gen Ginzu also. (Bought them from Yellowstone) Seems like something should protect the leading edge lip of those comb pieces so ice or crud can't pry them off like that. |
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