We have only been up to groom with both snowcats 1 day this week as it rained the first part of the week, which held us up for 2 days. When we got to Bone Springs, the shelter and the toilet were pretty much buried. There is over 10 feet of snow up there! We did backblade the doorways of both buildings, but there is a lot of shoveling to do to really get inside. With more snow it will be even more invisible! We did groom out to Bone Springs and back on Jubilee Road, to the store and back around McIntyre Loop, out through Spout to Woodland, Andies, cross the highway to 31 road and back around Gordon Creek twice, and Balloon Tree, 3719 road from Spout back through Morning Creek Snowpark. Today (Friday) weather has deteriorated with a major storm hitting, closing Highway 204 with high winds resulting in severe blowing and drifting snow and very low visibility. The avalanche danger has gone up into the high category as there could be 1-2 feet of new snow by tonight. The storm should pass tonight and we should be able to start grooming tomorrow, and probably only with the powder bars as it will be deep snow and the drags will be hard to pull through all that. Be on the lookout for the Snowcats tomorrow as we don’t normally groom during high traffic times for safety reasons. We had a breakdown, the powder bar springs broke on the 20 CAT, and I had new ones air freighted in, arriving yesterday afternoon. We will get those installed tomorrow morning so we can start work.
We are not going to groom around Baldy viewpoint anymore as a big cornis has formed at the top of the mountain and this week part of that broke off and came across the road past the viewpoint. We will only be going up the backside of Baldy from now on.
Thanks,
Jess Thompson TTF grooming chairman