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our snow, your snow, whos snow?
Topic Started: Jan 14 2010, 09:38 AM (1,377 Views)
arly
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I should remind everyone that snow here in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Lake Superior, is different than it is in West Yellowstone, and it’s not the same as in Neillsville WI. As you might guess, snow is different in Bolton Landin, NY , Bellingham, WA and Rochester, MN. With that in mind, we all have to treat the snow and trails a tad differently plus we have varying expectations. I try to mention this in my posts but sometimes I forget. For example we normally only go out to groom with fresh snow on the trails and our system doesn’t do sissy skiing (aka skating :) either. Hope that helps.
Edited by arly, Jan 14 2010, 09:39 AM.
http://keweenawnordic.org/ [/url] keweenawnordicskiclub.blogspot.com [/url]
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Steve.M
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arly
Jan 14 2010, 09:38 AM
For example we normally only go out to groom with fresh snow on the trails and our system doesn’t do sissy skiing (aka skating :) either. Hope that helps.
Ouch! ;)
I love sissy skiing! Actually, I started on old woodies, then eventually skating in '87 and now both, but much more skating. I wish we could groom only with every new snow, but we'd be waiting forever compared to the UP! We generally groom late in the week for the best weekend condtitions we can, then sometimes re-groom the skate lane Sat. night and then hit everything again early in the week. If the tracks are nice and rock hard, we don't touch them....unless, we do get that mysterious new snow. I find that skate lanes take the biggest abuse from striders who don't use the tracks, but rather shush down the middle of the skate lane, which wipes out the corduroy and tends to slick things up. We then go back in and touch it up with the teeth a tad, and comb it. With all that said, I take the most pride while grooming for setting perfect sets of tracks, even if I don't stride very often. Nothing looks nicer on the trail.
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semntrails
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Yup definately a big difference in what people see for snow. We're usually on the smaller amounts at a time and can have a week or more in between snows.

We usually groom 2-4 times a week depending on snow, weather and groomers time. We can go weeks inbetween snows, we also have a lot of foot traffic on our trails. We'll groom 1-2 times a weekend then 1-2 times during the week to keep the trails from turning into hard pack with foot divots in them. If the classic tracks are still decent we'll leave them be until they start getting trampled out or the conditions are good for resetting them.

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icebox
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Every one gets different snow, early it is wet, usually, January thaw, -20 and a skiff or frost, mid winter cold and dry, the coast is truly different as is Japan, almost always high humidity and wet, so yeah, my snow is different then yours, today, not sure about tomorrow. But soon enough, spring comes, and we can fix all the things we got by with this winter.
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BikerBill
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I was only a classic guy until I started to groom, IF I GROOM IT I AM GOING TO SKI IT!!!! We have seperate skate-8 miles and classic-12 miles of trails in the Hiawatha Nation Forest in cental Upper Michigan. Our trails are 10 miles north of Lake Michigan and 40 miles South of Lake Superior. With that location you would think we got snow every day, we do not. Pulling the YTS drags on the skating trails, I still kick up some dirt, for the first 3 weeks of the season I only pulled the ABR roller on the skating trail to clean it up. Last week Wed. 1/06/2010 was the 1st time I was able to set a good, deep track on the classic, previous tracks we set were skinny. Most of the snow we get is wet snow, so when we pack it, it sets up hard, great for the skaters. I pack the fresh snow on the classic trail with a ABR 6.5' roller with compactor so the classic skiers have lots of packed trail to manuver on if the track is skinny, we have some down hill with corners on them.
Today I skated 15 Miles and classic 7 miles. The skating got a lot easier after I watched Lee Borowski's "The New Simple Secrets of Skating" DVD , I highly recommend It, It really helped me. He also has a Striding DVD.
One last thing, I sure many of you fellow groomers know and do this but it is worth repeating, I found a good way to learn how to groom your trails is to ski it.
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arly
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My original point was to say "everyone's snow is different" and us groomers need to handle it in whatever way it works locally. Its not just the volume or frequency but the humidity, flake type and wind if may come with. Maybe Cowboy can talk to us about wind?? :D And of course the volume of skiers on it. Thanks to you folks who pointed out the difference, sissy skiers and all. ;)

Oh and we ski, in fact we competed in the Stormy Kromer Pursuit race in Montreal WI a few weeks ago and the Sisu ski marathon at Ironwood MI (mostly ABR trails) late weekend. I think most of the XC groomers here do ski.
Edited by arly, Jan 15 2010, 09:43 AM.
http://keweenawnordic.org/ [/url] keweenawnordicskiclub.blogspot.com [/url]
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Steve.M
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xcgroomer69
Jan 15 2010, 12:57 AM

One last thing, I sure many of you fellow groomers know and do this but it is worth repeating, I found a good way to learn how to groom your trails is to ski it.
Amen. When the county shop guys "groomed" many many years ago, they whipped around on an old Arctic Cat, hardly a track and berms all over-no clue to how a trail should look, and wouldn't go back to "fix" anything up. It was always "good enough." None of them skied, of course.
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couchsachraga
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Agreed- to be a good groomer in most cases you need to be a skier. At the place I used to work part time teaching the groomer to ski became the norm, and trails improved dramatically.

I suspect most of us on this board are groomers who ski (I started out as a skier / racer, but spend more time grooming than skiing it seems, so i guess I fall in to that camp now), though one, Douglas_Diehl, is a phenomenal skier who competes all over the place. I'm sure he could give us all pointers on how he, as a competitor, would like to see our trails a little different B)
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icebox
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If a groomer is observant you can learn a lot as well, my skiing is not as good as it once was, but watching what the public does by the use patterns in the snow is almost as important as skiing well. Where and when the average skier gets out of the track, or where a track gets snow plowed out is just as important. I may be able to ride a set of rails all the way down a hill I have skied and groomed a thousand times, the average skier probably can not, and there are a few skiers I can't follow on other down hill sections. Good technoque and wax will take me up some pretty tough hills that most skiers will herringbone, grooming for the average skier is more important, not only for risk managment, but for the enjoyment of the greates number of skiers. The good skiers adapt to recreational grooming, now race grooming is a whole different thing.
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couchsachraga
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Agreed - once you pay attention, and have an idea what folks face, you can adjust your style grooming wise.

You also make an excellent point on paying attention who you are grooming FOR. I groom the main trail as impeccably as I can, as I know I can't keep the general public off it. The stuff far back off in the woods, twisty, steep, great views, I groom for me, and other die-hard skiers who look for those sorts of trails.
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Steve.M
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couchsachraga
Jan 15 2010, 01:38 PM
Agreed - once you pay attention, and have an idea what folks face, you can adjust your style grooming wise.

You also make an excellent point on paying attention who you are grooming FOR. I groom the main trail as impeccably as I can, as I know I can't keep the general public off it. The stuff far back off in the woods, twisty, steep, great views, I groom for me, and other die-hard skiers who look for those sorts of trails.
I agree also-I tend to not set tracks on the steepest climbs (our trails are not super wide) which make it easier for skaters to climb, and, of course for striders herringboning. Our trails are all two-way, so the downfall there is if an advanced strider wants to hop in the tracks on a screamer downhill, there isn't always tracks til half way down. The steepest climbs are the furthest away and we probably have 80% skaters vs 20% striders on those advanced trails.
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Boldy
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I'm finding the direction this topic has taken is interesting because it was something that I was wondering anyway. How many groomers are also skiers? It appears on this forum that the majority are. I'm also a Classic skier who on occasion has been joining the "Dark Side" the last few years.
If you ski the trails you find out pretty quick what works and what doesn't.
Like: "Oh yeah I don't like branches hitting me in the face" or " Gee this outside pole plant is brutal".We can be pretty critical of our own work. But as a result we learn and the grooming improves over time. We've had some great skiing the past 2 weeks.

Our new Skandic SWT V800 is working out great so far. I've been following the ATV/UTV topics and wondering if we should have gone that route but I think there's still some things to figure out before they replace the sleds.
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couchsachraga
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At the two centers I've worked part time at in the past (one in upstate NY, the other in Maine) almost all the grooming staff were skiers (they had to be - if they certainly weren't working for just the money... (in other words they could have been paid more operating heavy equip (vs. snowcat)). That said, when the machine at one place was new (1987 or so... PB070's weren't cheap...) the first few years the fellows who operated it were not skiers for the most part, though the head of grooming was.

Boldy - not to get even further off track, but how do you like your 800 SWT vs, that Alpine II :)

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Boldy
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couchsachraga
Jan 15 2010, 08:11 PM
At the two centers I've worked part time at in the past (one in upstate NY, the other in Maine) almost all the grooming staff were skiers (they had to be - if they certainly weren't working for just the money... (in other words they could have been paid more operating heavy equip (vs. snowcat)). That said, when the machine at one place was new (1987 or so... PB070's weren't cheap...) the first few years the fellows who operated it were not skiers for the most part, though the head of grooming was.

Boldy - not to get even further off track, but how do you like your 800 SWT vs, that Alpine II :)

Couch - I always loved the Alpines ( We had 2) for the pure workhorse that it is, but as everyone who has driven one knows you might as well forget about turning. It has a mind of it's own sometimes. They've also reached an age where it's difficult to ask volunteer groomers to go out and try and get it started, let alone turn it. It's like an old truck that is near and dear to you but you're the only one that knows you have to "pump the gas 3 times, pull the choke, pump twice more, then turn it over, when it stalls then pump once more and you're good to go".
The Skandic is EFI, starts right up. So far we're happy with the handling. We've just got the factory skis (pretty wide) on it and compared to the Alpine it's a lot easier to steer. It's got lot's of power, we're pulling an 84" Ginzu. We haven't had a real deep dump of snow yet so I'm anxious to try it out in the deep stuff.

PS - We have an "Ode To The Alpine" which we penned a few years ago. I'll see if I can find it and possibly post it. It would go in the Doggerel category.
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couchsachraga
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I would very much like to read the "Ode to Alpine"

My Alpine II feels downright modern compared to the Alpine I sitting right next to it. Amazing workhorses, you're right, but not for everyone... especially when they start getting temperamental....

With a few tricks I picked up here my Alpine I steers GREAT, working on tweaking the II now while still keeping it stock.

Driving an Alpine is like teleskiing- you carve a turn, you don't just turn (you can, but sometimes you'll wind up continuing straight on ahead:) )...and even then.....
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