Como 12/23/22

Volunteer crew groomed Como today.

Lots of new snow, quite deep. We were able to get 550, Upper, Middle and Wolf Track/Shannon Gulch more packed down.

We ran out of day before we could get 550A packed down past the gate.

Trails are way too soft to skate ski or ride on.

Park at the Boat Ramp and hike up the trail (follow the blue diamonds), the 550 rd. has 15″ of new snow on it from the bottom. No one had tried to get up it today and it snowed hard all day and was dumping when we left so it will be even deeper tomorrow.

The Touring will be wonderful!

Chief Joseph Pass 12/21/22

All ski trails at Chief Joseph Pass were groomed today, and saw almost no traffic so they are in great condition. But there is a reason they saw so few skiers: it’s really cold! If you come up to ski Thursday be prepared for temperatures well below zero. It will be too cold for skate skiing, but should be great classic skiing for the extra hardy among us.

Rust Buster results

Here are the results for the Rust Buster. Thanks to everyone who came out to race and watch. Thanks to Lost Trail Ski Area and ski club chief groomer Tony Neaves for the excellent trail grooming, and a big thank you to the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest for working with us to make this happen.

Larry Creek

Last week we mentioned possibly grooming a new trail system. Well today it happened.

Chief Groomer Tony Neaves and club President Jesse Crocker headed out with USFS Stevensville District Ranger Steve Brown and Recreation Specialist Caleb George today to try out grooming trails in the Larry Creek area, near Florence. There are 2 trails groomed. Larry Creek Loop road, marked in blue at the map is a beginner level trail, groomed about 10 feet wide. The trail marked in purple on the map is narrower and steeper, more of a black diamond level trail. Both trails should be good for classic skiing, skate skiing and snowshoeing. Currently they are too soft for fat biking in most places, but may set up firmer over the next few days. Since this is the first time it was groomed the trails are still a little rough, but we are hoping to continue grooming these trails at least a few more times this season, so they should get better.

Get out there and ski then let us know what you think!

Thanks to the Bitterroot National Forest Stevensville ranger district staff for coming up with the idea for this, and approaching the ski club to get this going.

Fairgrounds 12/25/2022

Fairgrounds update from Chief groomer Tony:

Took advantage of a weather window and cleaned up the Fairgrounds this morning.

3″ of dry fluffy snow on top of wet, soggy snow, it almost looked like a lesson in futility (make a bigger mess out of it) but it smoothed out nice. Challenging flat light, went off trail in a few spots due to driving by braille moments. So easy to get lost out in the back lot!

Attempted to set track, it wasn’t cooperating, so I gave up trying.

As it cools off and it sets up more it will be great skating all weekend.

Chief Joseph Pass, Multi Use Trails

This year we are make some changes to our grooming program for the multi use trails at Chief Joseph Pass. The current plan is to groom these trails about once a month. We will likely also not be grooming all of the connector trails between Gibbons Pass Road and Overlook each time. The Ski Trails will still be groomed weekly. The changes are being made for several reasons:

Grooming the Multi Use Trails has gotten more difficult. A large fire break was cut along side Gibbons Pass Road as part of fighting the 2020 Trail Creek Fire. Without the protection from the wind that the forest granted there are many large snow drifts. Grooming through these drifts takes significant time, and the drifts re-form quickly.

Decreased Grant Funding. The amount of grant funding we receive from Montana FWP to help pay for grooming has decreased about 30% in the past few years.

Increase diesel costs. We partner with Lost Trail ski area to groom these trails, they do the grooming with a snowcat that runs on diesel, and diesel prices have gone up significantly the past few years. Diesel is the single biggest cost for this grooming.

Usage. We could have dealt with the increased costs by reducing grooming frequency on the ski trails and multi use trails. Grooming each trail system costs about the same amount, but the ski trails serve significantly more users who are dependent on well groomed trails.

If you are interested in seeing the multi use trails groomed more often and in helping pay for it, let’s talk. Grooming these trails costs about $600 each time, and we could easily add grooming on specific days, or increase the overall frequency if someone wants to help pay for it.