Author: SWNSC

Classic Track set – new grooming

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.

Winter stops by for a visit…

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.

Still NOTHING!!!

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…

NEW SNOW!!!

What a crazy year! Oh well, we’ll take this weather any time! The weird thing is that this is not actually the “first snow of the year” post, haha.

As of this post (Monday afternoon), it’s still coming down and quite cold. If it continues overnight, it might be worth taking out a machine and grooming Camp May road practice area — we’ll see. If that does pan out, we’ll report back. At any rate, we’ll definitely be holding the SWNSki Kids group practice at Western Area park tomorrow evening. We’ll probably even give it a test run tonight.

We heard that Enchanted Forest XC up in Red River is really getting pounded. That will make for some nice early season skiing. Woohoo!

Club Membership and Donation Link Active on SkiReg

Alrighty…it’s about time! We finally got the membership registration and donation link all renewed and functioning again. The link is above the picture on this home page, but here is the link just in case:
SWNSC Club Membership and Donation on SkiReg

We’ve been busy getting things ready for the season, with lots of trail work, fencing repairs, and some pretty crazy machine mechanic jobs. Now, the weather just has to start changing. We’ll be ready…

Our venerable 1972 Cushman Trackster, aka “Kermit” is getting a complete rebuild, including motor, transmission, and drivetrain. If you see Logan Ott, buy that man a steak dinner. We could never do this without him!

Starting up…

Hi everyone! Hope you all are having a great and healthy fall. What a weird year (that’s an understatement). We’ve been getting things ramped up in anticipation for what we hope is a turn in weather and a good winter season. It hardly feels like winter is coming, but sometimes it is like that. We’ll start posting updates as we have them. For now, we’ve finally gotten around to turning the “SkiReg” club registration and donation site back on. It may take a day or two to start working, so we’ll update again.

End of Season Report (summer!)

We ended up being able to ski for most of March, but it only snowed a couple of times, forcing us to alter the tracks just enough to make it out to the good snow in the meadow. It snowed only once in April, with an oddly cold day in a string of overly warm and dry days, giving one last day of touring skiing. After that, we closed up shop and had a great cleanup day from club volunteers.

Conditions Report, March 6, 2020

Well, with the dearth of new snow and recent warm temps, our great ski season is taking a beating these days. There is an interesting forecast for next week, so we’ll see if we get a stay of execution. Trails were regroomed earlier this week, but there are about 4 or 5 thin, narrow sections that require a lot of caution to ford. They’re quite short, but be careful. Skiing was stellar on Tuesday, but things change quickly with long, warm, and sunny days.

Sweet March skiing conditions out in the upper meadow
View of Cerro Abrigo out in the Valles Caldera
Early March, 2020: our grooming rig on Camp May, heading out for a long night…