Even MORE Snow! Conditions Report – March 18, 2024

Well, that 2.5 week heatwave back in late February and March is a thing of the past, and the damage it caused is all but erased, other than some funky side slopes and rolls that weren’t there before. Otherwise, there’s a lot of new snow out there. But, it is spring (starting this week), so things are gonna change fast as soon as the sun starts shining in earnest.

We do have plans to groom a couple more times to get things smoothed out after the weekend. We did have it all packed, rolled, and relatively smooth by Friday evening, but we are REALLY scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of grooming volunteer coverage, so with all that new snow, it was best to save our powder and wait until things settled. We’ll post a new report once we’re done with the grooming.

Speaking of grooming — we need to recruit some more folks for next year. It’s not so bad once you get the hang of it, but it is a bit of a commitment. We’ve improved the process quite a lot over the years and will continue to do so, with new machines and equipment. It’s a lot more automated and modern that it was when all this began. If you’re interested, just email the contact form here. It is kind-of a good job for strong young men, but most of our groomers are over 40, and even 50, so it’s not a “young guy” requirement. We’ve also had a couple of gals pitch in a few times in years past. We do need some diversity 😉

Lots of New Snow!

Logan, Kevin, and Clay got out this afternoon and evening to get a jump on the packing and grooming of the trails and all this new snow. It was a booger to get around the trail system with the machines and roller, and especially a groomer.

Logan got things roll packed, but the subsequent effort to groom was not as successful. Machines got seriously stuck so it was mostly a dig-out effort. Everything did get packed out, however so some classic touring should be pretty nice. Plus it’s gonna snow even more.

We’ll attempt to groom more tomorrow and will send out an update.

Also a big thanks to Logan for cutting out the downed trees at the Pt-G cut-off!

Trails groomed 3/13/24

Trails were seriously in need of some attention. Everything, including Camp May Rd, was groomed this evening. No classic track was reset. Skate and classic should both be pretty smooth tomorrow. New snow is forecast from Thursday through Sunday. That should be interesting.

Expect spring conditions. Front Hill has 3 short open sections on the lower part then it’s fine up to Pt. A. Use rock skis.

Smoothing out the meadow
Groomer’s POV of the sun setting over the Valles Caldera.

Winter Returns…

As predicted, winter is making its return after a late February meltdown. It seems to go like this every year now: just as we get a good base of snow built up and groomed out the way we want, everything warms up and we go through a prolonged dry spell that breaks the conditions down to either nothing, or to a point that’s hard to put back together. Thankfully, we didn’t quite get there this year, but things weren’t looking so good earlier in the week.

Actually, things skied pretty nicely after being regroomed Tuesday evening, but it wasn’t gonna last long if we didn’t get new snow. With today’s storm, looks like we’re back in business!

I’m not sure if we’ll get any packing/rolling done tonight, or grooming done in the morning, but certainly, we’ll get out by tomorrow evening to groom. Looks like another, even bigger storm is forecast for later this next week. We’ll keep it going until it really starts to break down. It should be pretty good for at least another couple of weeks with this weather pattern change. Whew!

Webcam at Pajarito, around 3:30pm
Thursday afternoon at the Caldera Rim, just as the storm started to roll in

Still Going! 3/5/2024

The last couple of weeks have not been kind to our snow conditions, but with some effort from the groomers, it’s still going. Believe it or not, there’s still a continuously snow-covered trail from start to finish, but maybe only for one or two more days. The front hill has a couple of very narrow spots and will need to be portaged after this heat spell. But, it’s supposed to snow starting Thursday.

I got out tonight with the grooming stuff and set the tiller down deep to smooth out all the funky meltdown snow. It was mostly successful, but not everything smoothed out perfectly. It really needs to snow to be fully resuscitated. Fingers crossed.

For now, it’s really only groomed for skate, but classic skiing will be ok without the track. Also, I spent some time clearing more tree debris and the rest of that tree that came down out in the meadow.

Be careful if you do go ski, and bring your rock skis. There’s now a lot of tree trash and thin spots, but we’re still skiing.

The meadow trail loop really got a lot of attention so it’s back to looking pretty good. Otherwise it’s really a spring skiing mixed bag of conditions.

We’ll keep things going after this next forecasted storm, but unless the there’s another one to save us, next week might be the finale for this season. Stay tuned and get in some skiing before we pull the plug…

What a Mess! (and a bit of new snow)

There are some choice words about all of that wind and the mess it made, which had to be cleaned up by a hardy grooming armada of 3 old guys. It was not the most most fun 5.5 hrs, but hopefully we’ve salvaged the trails and still good snow for some more late season skiing.

So far, we’ve only managed to clear trees and some really messy tree-top and branch explosions that caused a lot of messy debris fields. Things aren’t groomed yet, but we did manage to get stuff kind of bladed and packed out from all the traffic to get to the tree-clearing messes.

We got probably 99% of the debris cleaned up, but there’s still a lot of sticks, pine bows, cones, and bark embedded in the snow, so be careful. There was somehow even a tree that fell across the trail out in the meadow and got encapsulated in a drift. Talk about adding insult to injury 😒

Not sure when it’ll be groomed, so stay tuned. We’re working with a skeleton crew of old-guy volunteers, whose backs will need to recover from last night and tonight’s cleanup…

Grooming Report 2024/02/24

Classic Track: Yes

The grooming crew was out Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week. We have been trying to keep the snow in good shape so it continues to last and ski well.The front hill is starting to narrow but the shade fencing is doing its job and there’s still coverage the whole way. Past Point A, the trails are in great shape. We refreshed the corduroy and reset the classic track this evening. Should be good skiing Sunday morning.

Kevin

Whew, it’s warm out there!

Just a quick PSA: it’s super warm and the snow is very sensitive/vulnerable to degradation from all sorts of traffic, including skiing. Please consider NOT skiing during the warm/melty part of the day. Wait until late afternoon or the morning so as to preserve what we have. Hopefully, we’ll see some sort of return to winter next week…

In the meantime, here are some recent photos of grooming in the early evening — the longer days mean it’s not completely dark during the first round of grooming. Unfortunately, the conditions will NOT look like this after this week. UGH.

Spring Weather This Week 😩

Temperatures are headed into the meltdown range this week. As such, please consider not skiing, and especially snowshoeing, during the warm time of the day. It’s quite detrimental to the conditions.

It was a busy holiday weekend. Most of the trails were cleaned up but it’s a variable mix of conditions and not everywhere has a classic track.

Conditions are dependent on the grooming. Freeze-thaw weather and grooming frequency is like a jar of mayonnaise sitting out on the kitchen counter. If you don’t do something about it in a couple of days, it goes bad pretty fast. Hopefully we still have some base after this hot spell.

So, please refrain from using the trails as much as possible, especially while it’s warm. Looks like a weather change is in store next week…