Thursday Evening trail conditions

The trail received an inch or a bit more of fine grained, humid snow which revived last weekends grooming nicely, just enough snow to cover the pine needles and other trash in the classic tracks and the skating lane.

Skiing after 3PM I got good kick skiing classic using blue klister, but my glide would have been improved had I covered it with something like violet hard wax. Denny reported good skating and good turning late this afternoon. If you're lucky enough to have tomorrow off, I recommend you get up and enjoy very good skiing!

You may have noticed we haven't been able to groom as much as usual. We are in the midst of a grooming crisis with three of our four old machines broken down (and even the 4th machine is having its issues!) and so instead of grooming, the guys find themselves working on fixing the machinery! And machine number 4 is on it's way to Chama to groom for Sunday's Chama Chile Classic, a service the guys have been providing the Chama folks for some years now.

We are in desperate need of a new, dependable snowmobile to enable our groomers to spend their time grooming instead of repairing. Our current machines are ancient: dating from the mid 1970's to the newest at 1984, and even when they are running, they are not very dependable.

So we are looking at a big fundraising project to raise the $10,000 needed for a new grooming snomobile. This week we had a Board Meeting to discuss the possibilities. We are now a "pending" 501 Tax Exempt Corporation which should help greatly in getting business donations, and some of our Board Members are beginning to make the rounds soliciting donations from area outdoor related businesses.

Additionally, we will need help from our members and trail users to raise this huge amount of money, and I hope you will be able to join us. Our trails and the quality of the groomed skiing and snowshoeing we have been able to provide area residents is of an exceptionally high quality, which is even more notable as use of our trails is free to all. And we have been providing this groomed skiing for almost 30 years now.

In the next weeks you will be seeing posters on the trail, articles in the paper, and messages on the web asking for your help. We hope you will find yourself willing to give us a hand, not only with a donation, but also by helping us spread the word among area skiers and snowshoers of our need.!

Thanks,

Tom