It was kind of bittersweet… no, just bitter, to spend those volunteer hours doing trail cleanup after yet another lackluster winter season. Oh well, I guess that’s how it goes sometimes. Predictions are looking better for next season, but we’ll believe it when we see it, right? I guess we did have some little moments this year, but they were very little and far between.
A big thanks to Siobhan for spearheading the effort this spring! She really stepped up and organized a little hard-core group, and then went back out with Anders and finished the fence take-down for pickup and storage. Also a big shout-out to Dina and her 70 yrs young mom, Olga, for spending so many hours a couple of weeks ago. Huge effort there, 5 stars!
There are still some trees down and a couple of odds and ends, but we’re looking good for the rest of spring and summer.
Heading back to the summer storage shack — 3 full loadsLots of trees were down and blocked access to the different sections of fencing to be picked upThis one was a mess, and it’ll need more cleanup work later in the summer or fallIt’s always a bummer when one of our “landmark trees” falls downMost of the trees were these old aspens that aren’t too hard to clear, thankfully!
The adult classic clinic is set for Thursday evening. There is fresh classic track set on/around the Camp May practice area.
Conditions are thin and a bit tenuous out on the rest of the system, but it was groomed last evening, and we put in a "best line" classic track on the upper trails. The lower road was left as-is.
We’ll leave it all classic until the weekend, then assess the situation to see if it’s worth grooming again for just skate/no-track.
It’s staying cool, but not really cold. Things are degrading a bit, but not like in December.
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.
It always looks amazing right after the storm, at night. It’ll be a bit rocky under there in places, so be careful.
All this awful sunny and warm weather is depressing! We need winter to return. In the past 30 years, no winter has ever been this devoid of… well, WINTER! Still hoping things will change in January, but it’s not looking all that promising — just a few little wisps of weather coming in from the Pacific, and it mostly looks like rain. How weird. Anyway, sorry… we can’t do anything about the weather.
There’s not even any snow in the canyons. Usually there’s at least some white in the shady areas, but not this year…
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…
