ABR Trails

Great grooming today with fresh snow, we did pick up about 4-5 inches and it is still snowing. 4 Groomers were out from 8 AM when it started snowing until 2 pm… the new snow has really made skiing back to great conditions. We are planning on opening the Highlands up in the AM, the offer is still open for skiers to shovel in the exit hill, it is thin…Recreational skiers will be happy. I think 8o km will be open for skiing tommorow, 95 km for the weekend.

We had a groomer team of 3 this morning at 6 AM. I was lucky enough to be included. Wully Bully and Honey Badger took care of Blueberry and Bards and to the south and then the Highlands. Pig Heart took care of the old ABR . We concentrated on texturizing the skate lanes and shoveling thin areas and picking sticks (no new classic tracks today). We all met up on Turkey Hill and the Highlands exit hill and shoveled for an hour to beef up the base to get it skiable…this is the weak link for 20 km of great trails on the southlands. We left a snow rake and a shovel for any “overly” ambitious skiers to enhance the snow cover with moving additional future snowfall on to the trails. Due to the usage and hills these two hills make the Highlands bottle neck and they are closed now for that reason.

Wully Bully and Honey Badger cut in and shoveled in a connector for the #2 River Trail bypass. This by-pass is very similar to Pit Point by-pass it bypasses the steep climb descent on River Trail “High Rock” the scenic overlook to Wisconsin. It is a better by-pass for those that want the mild terrain from River Trail by-pass #1 by Sulos. to by-pass #2 and the steep climb descent is avoided using Tamarack 2 track backwards for a short distance.

Sorry for rambling and recruiting…. Ski trails groomed up ok but there still are many thin areas where you can damage a good ski if you are not careful. We are getting steady skier use and we are trying to keep up on weak areas with shoveling and daily grooming. Best classic skiing is on the “Trees” Tamarack Hemlock and parts of Jack Pine and White Pine and all the combo trails.

Forecast snow 3-8 inches Tuesday 7 AM to 4 PM. Full groomer team coming in. We are excited for the new snow!

We had a great morning of grooming,… just 3 of us out on lighter equipment, but we groomed 72 km in an early AM 3 hour shift. Yesterday’s snow groomed up quite well and conditions were much better today from yesterday. “Widetrack” set some pretty good classic tracks on Tamarack 2 track, we left the other tracks alone since the 2 day old tracks were firm with a few washouts; the new snow skied in well and covered some thin areas under the conifers. We groomed the Highlands and the black diamonds but we kept them ribboned off and closed until we get more snow to make them safe. It won’t take much new snow to reopen that 40 km, but meanwhile we are enjoying 55 k of trails. We just completed the new map draft and it should be online in the next few days.

Just coming in from checking trails…..I am very pleased to find the new 2 inches of snow that fell this afternoon/evening. Skiers were quite pleased with the improvements in the trail from yesterday. The base is there, we just needed the new snow to cover some of the thin areas. Groomers will be back out in the early AM to regroom the majority of the trail combination trails. We will most likely let the 2 inches get skied in on classic only trails that we retracked yesterday…. but we may reset classic tracks on combination trails.

Grooming and skiing turned out way better than expected! The new 2 inches of snow groomed up well. We groomed about 35 km of skating lanes and set 50 km of classic tracks. We tried mixing the old snow with the new snow but had to be careful with the base. We did hit some debris and grass in resetting the classic grooves. Some of the skate lanes have thin areas under the conifers (Christmas trees),… but they are very skiable. The conditions this weekend are not as good as last weekend, however they are better than early season conditions because the Pisten Bullies have flatted and leveled the base. We need a bit more snow to open the black diamond trails.