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.
Those full moon nights were awesome in early December. Grooming those first few snows we got — little did we know summer was about to return…Junior team about to head out for a weekend practice in early December
At long last, we’ve gotten this year’s club registration up and running. Hopefully, the bugs are all worked out. Thank you for your patience. Here’s a photo of recent trail work in the snow. Hopefully, this stretch of warm weather yields to a snowier pattern later in November!
thank you for your responses. Thanks to our awesome volunteer groomers taking the time to keep the little bouts of snow rolled, groomed and maintained – we are still able to ski even in a low snow year!
Please remember to update your membership before participating if you havent yet – our club insurance requires the waiver you sign for participation as part of it.
Additional details for clinics:
Please do RSVP for each day with your technique (and level if we have not talked/emailed recently):
Saturday Jan 25: SKATE and CLASSIC
TIME: 9am-10:30am Camp May Rd gate (just below Aspen Lift of Pajarito ski area)
Sunday Jan 26: SKATE and CLASSIC
TIME: 9am-10:30am Camp May Rd gate (just below Aspen Lift of Pajarito ski area)
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.
The hitch on the G2 groomer broke during grooming, causing the control box wiring to get damagedWalt Wehner skied out to the abandoned groomer to retrieve the hitch parts, and weld-repaired it to a much better strength level!Pretty good skiing over the weekendEarly grooming with the old equipment: Viking snowmobile and the original Tidd Tech Trail Tenderizer Cooling the snowmobile down while grooming in the moonlightThis was the first night to get the groomer around after having to pack things out several rounds without towing anythingKevin Reid out doing some pre-season trimming an digging out fencing before the REALLY big storm hit. This was November 5Trying to beat the storm, but didn’t make it…
As you may know from club group emails or Sanna’s post, we have a serious snow fencing challenge to complete this weekend and could use as much help as possible both days.
Athletes, please plan to help if you can, making sure to dress for deep snow using proper pants, socks, shoes and definitely some sort of gloves that are thin enough for zip ties but will keep your hands warm – bring multiple pairs of gloves up for sure.
Coach Sanna is leading a volunteer group Saturday at 9 am.
I will be up Saturday afternoon at 1 pm.
Both of us will be there Sunday morning – with more details on Sunday will be posted on Sat after we see where we are.
Got up to the shop Sunday afternoon to do some cleanup both inside, and around the base area. It was time to get the trailhead signs removed to let people know that the grooming is done for the year, and get the grooming implements moved to the other side before the snow melts. There were also a lot of dog poop bags to gather for disposal (yuck!).
Remember, we’ll plan on a big group “work party” on April 27-28. It’ll mostly focus on fencing removal, loading, and hauling to the storage shed for the summer. Bring snips or needle-nose pliers and a plastic bag for disposing of the ties.
Gotta get the stuff moved over the shop side of the base area. It was still pretty frozen in!It took a bit to get the Kubota out of the frozen hole it was in.Every year… There’s always a bunch of these dog poop bags to gather and dispose of. Yuck. This is only one of three piles!
This turned out to be a good season, if not a bit challenging to keep groomed at times. It was smooth sailing (mostly) until February, when high winds blew down a bunch of trees and debris, and that was on top of a tropical heat wave that settled in for about two weeks and burned up a lot of our great winter base of snow. Thankfully, we’d stayed on top of the grooming and the snow depth was good, so we were able to weather the challenges, so to speak. March was fabulous, with so many BIG snowstorms, but we didn’t have a fully-staffed grooming crew, so it was difficult to stay on top of the big influx of new snow. We managed and there were some great days in there, for sure!
Finally, we still have some fine spring skiing and there was even one last grooming this past weekend, with Kevin getting out and setting a fresh classic track to finish out the season. It was so nice Tuesday evening, with about 1″ of fresh snow on top from the little waves of precip that rolled through during the day.
Thanks to everyone who supported the efforts with volunteering and donations, etc. This is entirely a DIY volunteer program, so it belongs to all of you. We’ll put together another weekend of year-end volunteer work to get the fencing and signs down and stored away until next November.
Great classic skiing on April 9Front hill shade fencing performed wonderfully this season!It’s always a treat to make it out to the Caldera rim. This view as magnificent on April 9 at around 6pm as the storm passed through.
The equinox begins at 9:06 PM MDT, so there’s officially one more day of winter skiing left, although it’ll feel like spring conditions, at least later in the day. It’ll be pretty nice this morning.
Things were fully groomed last night. Most of it will be nice, but there are some weird spots from the packing with a heavier machine. It was hard to groom through that smoothly. Otherwise, it’s nice. Still LOTS of snow
We may be signing off for the season. We’re out of groomers! It’s been a long season.
