I was up on the mountain yesterday and rode the Yamaha VK up through Spout and opened the gates at the top of the hill above Woodland towards Andies and also Gordon Creek gate off Balloon Tree Road. Trails have not changed, the main roads on Balloon Tree, Gordon Creek Loop and also around 3719 Coyote, Jubilee are still in good shape. The trails from Spout to Woodland and to the Alpine have not gotten any worse but are really bumpy. Weather forecast for tonight through tomorrow is for rain and then turn back to snow showers the rest of the week, don’t know if we will get enough snow to groom. We will be watching and go as soon as we can. I have had a couple of questions: 1. why can’t we just skim and smooth it up through Morning Creek? We tried that on the 27th and it didn’t work. It is too hard and shallow we were in rocks, especially around Morning Creek as that connecting trail is not a road, it is just cut through the trees , there are stumps and rocks.2. if we had a tiller, could we be grooming? The answer is no as we would still have to do most of the trail smoothing with the front blade as the tiller just conditions the snow. Tillers don’t like rocks and stumps as they will be damaged costing thousands of dollars to repair. The working depth of a tiller is 3-5 inches so most of your work is done with the front blade to fill holes and cut moguls. The snow is too hard for that.as we found out on the 27th.This is not the first year we have had to wait until January to groom due to a lack of snow. To my memory it is the 4th time in 32 years. We are not the only club waiting for snow as I check around the state, this is a common problem this year with less than 40% snowpack.
Try to have a good New Years and think snow.
Jess Thompson TTF grooming chairman