Southwest Nordic Ski Club

Finally…? Well, at least it feels a little more like winter, for the moment. Hopefully, things will pick up in February. We’re living week to week, day to day with the snow, as we picked up only the bare minimum to go up and groom. With the colder temperatures, it will stick around a bit longer, but rocks are still in abundance around the system, especially in those sunny spots that were bare before this past storm, which dropped anywhere from 7″, up to 10″ farther out in the meadow. It’s going to be tricky conditions — definitely rock skis, so don’t expect anything miraculous, but there is skiing for now, both skate and classic.

Well, the dreaded West Coast High Pressure Ridge is once again wreaking havoc on all of our winter weather. It’s just just us here in NM, but all the way up in Utah, Idaho, and even Washington State (although lots of their problems are from warm rain). We’ll just have to wait this out and hope that there’s some little bit of snow left on the trails, and that we can start over. It’s still early and we could have a pretty normal year if things go back to normal. Fingers crossed. It was at least nice to get a start to the season in late November and early December. There’s really not much to talk about at the moment. It was good to see the first adult ski clinic have such a good turnout last evening on the Camp May practice area. The road remains closed during the week through at least another week or two… probably around Christmas, while the pipeline project wraps up. Please respect their closure.

After long last, since just after Halloween in fact, we got some appreciable snow. It was enough to get out and roll and it’s skiable, albeit on rock skis. But it’s supposed to remain seasonably cold and there’s even a chance for more next weekend.

Be super careful when you do go out to ski and be mindful of those thin spots and obstacles.

Whew, what a start to the season and November! We didn’t quite have the hay into the barn before the storms hit us and we had to scramble to get the fencing up (a HUUUGE thank you to everyone for helping out with that), and see if we could maybe get on top of all of that 38″ to 42″ of early season snow. It has not been easy, and there’s been a lot of continuing pre-season issues going on. We didn’t quite have the machine situation squared away yet, so that has been a big part of it the challenges. On top of that, trees have come down, the lone snowmobile can’t quite handle deep snow, grooming equipment was buried and not quite repaired, etc., etc.

The good news is that we did receive a New Mexico Outdoor Recreation grant for the purchase of a good machine for trail maintenance and grooming. For once, we will have something new and specified for what we’re doing. Also, our old Cushman Trackster (a.k.a. “Kermit”) is finally getting a major transmission overhaul. It was losing hydraulic pressure and even leaking fluid, so it was time to completely pull it and tear it down. A HUUUGE thanks to Logan for taking that on.

There have been a lot of parts ordering and night-time repairs going on, but hopefully, we’ll be in a better position when December comes around.

Grooming has been occurring, when time permits for a couple of old guys with jobs. Hopefully, it’ll be more consistent once we get the machines back online.