going, Going, GOING... gone? (March 5-7)

Sorry for the long gap in posting a conditions update here. Things get really crazy with work, family, coaching, and of course all of this grooming business. After yet another long drought stretch that almost had us pulling the plug in February (NO!!!), we got that great week of snow and cold weather that saved our season...again. Funny how this year has been. Each month had a storm right in the middle that kept us in business and gave us one wonderful week of skiing, then followed by too much warm, dry, sun. I have to say, I didn't expect much out of this year and it has been frustrating, but overall I think it surpassed my expectations. We have had a fair number of very good days of skiing, just not a deep and resilient base to keep it going. We've definitely had a lot of days on rock skis and further degradation of skis that will become rock skis...sigh. 

So, here we are at March 5th and looking down the barrel of a "heatwave" forecast for Sunday-Tuesday. That's a bummer since we did pick up about 2" of new snow yesterday that the groomers went out and roll-packed down to preserve and keep it from blowing away. Word on the trail is that it is VERY good conditions, save for the odd thin and bare spot here and there. Tonight, we'll go up and perform the full ice-grind and groom for one last glorious Saturday, before the meltdown commences on Sunday. 

The kids' club will be having a practice biathlon in the upper meadow (kinda early), so be aware of that, but don't let it stop you. Come watch them scramble and ski their hearts out, while trying to remain calm while shooting the targets. It's kind of interesting to see. 

 After the big meltdown, the National Weather Service is hinting at an interesting an much wetter forecast for late next week and beyond. They're staying coy about the details, as all of these hopeful pattern changes have not quite materialized the way they would first report, but if it does turn out to be true, we might pull the equipment around again if it's worth it. 

 Thanks for all the wonderful support, and here's to a better season next year.

LAlleyFloop 2021!!

Announcing a pretty dumb virtual distanced ski tour/not-a-race for our Los Alamos Trails. The Los Alamos Alley Fake Loop aka the LAlley Floop.

As the club is general not headed up to do the Alley Loop in Crested Butte this winter and we miss it so, I(Tarik) have created this course in the spirit of the Alley Loop utilizing the all the ungroomed short cuts on our trail which are our version of the alleys in CB. This is really aimed toward the SWNordic Ski Kids racers, but all are welcome to try it any time between Wednesday 2/3 and Tuesday 2/9.

All SWnordic Kids that complete one of the courses this week will get a prize from our friends at Crested Butte Nordic. Please contact me (tariksaleh at gmail dot com) if your kid does the tour, and which course and the time if you want, I will collate, post participants/results, and get prizes distributed. If you want, send me a photo of you or your kids doing the course for posting.

I will take times and courses for other finishers, but again, this is not a race, it is a pretty dumb course and getting dumber by the second this week unless we get some snow, it was pretty damn good last week, but it is not last week anymore, is it? No, it is not. I put the "long course" on Strava as "LAlleyFloop2021" if you are so inclined. These is a true freestyle courses. Long course should be faster on skate skis, but the shortcuts are not groomed and are kind of a slog on skate skis depending on your skills and will. Kind of like the Alleys in crested butte, just with more altitude change. People might be happier on classic skis. I don't care, it is immaterial what kind of skis you use.

OK, everyone with me? I suggest the junior skiers ski this with their little pod groups for fun or with their parents. Again, do this at any time you wish in the next week and please don't gather or crowd or otherwise violate covid protocols. Watch for other trail user and dogs and snowshoers on the lower trails.

Here are the courses:

1. LAlleyFloop2021 Long Course (4km) this is on Strava : Experienced skiers only, and more experienced junior skiers. Be aware the N->O shortcut is kind of sketchy and narrow and is losing snow rapidly today : Start at A. Go up upper trails, take the left shortcut at TJ's and then the second shortcut up to J. At J go up the trails and take the next two upper shortcuts. At the top of the second shortcut, take a left and ski that loop down. Now go down the first of the upper trails shortcuts back to J. At J take a hard left to take the shortcut to point M on the meadow/lower road. At M take a hard right and head down the lower road, and keep straight at the shortcut at N (the snowshoe trail) and take that down to the lower road at O. Take the lower road back toward the start, however just past the top of the first uphill take a right on the wide ungroomed shortcut to the upper trail near B. From B, ski down to A. You are done! This took Aida and I about 45 minutes of slow slushy skiing with a lot of breaks to bemoan the way too warm conditions. There are a few rocks here and there and the N->O downhill shortcut is burning out fast and is narrow and steep and hard to slow down sometimes. It gets a ton of snowshoe traffic so the lane is a bit narrow for snow plowing. You may skip this and ski the whole lower road instead. If this sounds confusing you really should get to know our trails better, so consider it a challenge. If you mess it up, I bet you had fun anyway and it still counts if you tried. I am sure the map wont help top much, but here goes Map:

2. LAlleyFloop2021 short course (upper): Start and end at A. Ski the uppertrails taking the short cuts to point J. Take J to the meadow if you want. Get back to point A via whatever route is safe and comfy for you. This is less challenging for younger and inexperienced skiers, but still might be a little sketchy from J to A via the lower road if it gets too warm. So you can just turn around and head back to A if you want. For some of the newer skiers, just getting to point A is a victory in it self. So use your best judgement for younger skiers. Same to point J as above, choose your own adventure on the way back

3.LAlleyFloop2021 Littles course 1 (or everyone course if it all goes wrong this week for snow coverage): Start at Gate on camp may road, ski up the road to mother lift, around mother lift and then down back toward the gate. On the way back, take a right up the steep little hill and then ski past the Aspen lift and then take a hard left and go down the steeper cut back toward camp may road. Then ski up camp may road to the fir tree and take a right on our trail system and then an immediate right on the shortcut back to the gate. Dont do this when the lifts are running. I think this is almost 0.5 miles per lap, so do as many laps as you want. I will add this to strava for science sooon. Map:

4. LAlleyFloop2021 Littles course 2: Start at Gate on camp may road, ski up the road to mother lift, around mother lift and then down back to the gate. Finish at gate. This is about .3miles. You can do another lap, or lots of laps, see if I care.

Hopefully this will be fun. But remember, the real fun is the friends we made along the way, except for this year, there are no new friends, just isolation with you and your skis and the trail. I think there is great potential for an even dumber slightly expanded LAlleyFloop if the two shortcuts from TJ's to the lower road are passable again, then you can go from N->O and then right back up to TJ's and then across the lower part of TJ's to the other shortcut to P? on the lower road and then up the lower road to the shortcut up to B and make a zigzag. I think this is pretty impassible right now with trees down and aspens growing in the shortcut, so maybe next year. I am sure clay has opinions on why this is not a good course and how it could be better, but this one is 100% excellent and definitely the best course ever.

More new snow for 1/26/2021

I think we're finally getting out of the "low and pathetic" conditions reports into the "this is great!" category of trail reports. Not to be too greedy, but I do think we could use just a bit more snow to make things last for a while longer. We just barely got over the hump of getting those giant volcanic rocks covered, so one more good round would really help things out. We're keeping the trails rolled and compacted as each wave comes through. It takes a long time to set a classic track, so we kinda wait until it lets up so it doesn't just fill in. When it's soft like it is now, a track isn't really necessary anyway. Looks like a break in the action starting tomorrow through early Friday (with some warmer temperatures), with another quick-hit storm right at the start of the weekend. Another round is expected throughout the day today. Groomers will be up each night working on the trails, so check it out!

Trails report for January 23, 2021

We got up to the trails to groom around a quarter to six, did some work to the machines and unearthed our "good snow" groomer, which has been frozen to the ground, covered in fall leaves, then buried under the less than optimal snowpack thus far. Things are improving, so we think we'll be able to pull it out and finally use it this season! One more round of snow, and it's gettin' called into action. We went out to set track and shovel a couple of the thin spots, which went well. It started snowing while we were grooming, but we went ahead and finished the job. It came down pretty hard just as we were leaving, so that was great to see, but obviously, it was going to fill in the tracks...oh well, we need the snow badly. Everything was regroomed and mostly all set with track. Things have improved and it's now mostly possible to ski even the lower meadow without issues if you know the right line ;-) Today, I was able to ski without hitting a single thing, even on the front hill, which is obviously still very thin. With each round of snow, we'll do our best to pack/groom/set track, but there may be some delays depending on volunteer availability. It's a hard job and takes a LONG time to do each session (at least 3 to 5 hours). Thanks to all of you who have renewed your memberships and/or supported the club. It keeps the program running and the trails groomed! Please get out and enjoy these good conditions!!!

Grooming report 1/22/2021

 Dang...again, apologies for the long delays in updating the news blog.  We suffered a mysterious mechanical on one of the machines and it took a big effort to go rescue it and get it repaired.  Too many things to do with so little time...

Anyway, woohoo for the new snow, ~13" of wet stuff that quickly got saturated in the next day's sun and compressed to a firm 7" or so.  That really saved us and things are not so bad out beyond Point-B or so on the trails.  Parts of the lower Guaje Trail (aka "Lower Road") are still a little thin, but mostly all good after lots of packing and grooming.  The lower meadow below Point-N on the system index is still bumpy from the huge grass clumps, but if skied carefully, is quite passable now.  

The front hill is still super thin and has rocks all through that middle steep, narrow section.  Use EXTREME caution through there and don't even think about snow plowing in that section unless you really do not care about your ski bases.  You will hit rocks.  We always tell people to twist your poles around 180-degrees so that the ski baskets are in the "up" position.  You can carefully "walk" yourself down with your arms/poles until you're through that bad section.  Or, do the prudent thing and take your skis off to walk (stay on the high side, not in the middle) around it.  At any rate, it's short and you can ski just about everything right now.

We rolled everything twice, then pulled the smaller groomer through.  We need one more good storm to pull out our fancy, big "Tidd" groomer with the tiller and leveler.  There's just not quite enough to do that just yet.  Perhaps after the weekend.

The plan is to get a classic track set tonight on the parts of the system that allows it right now...the upper tree trails mainly.  There should be good skiing this weekend.  

Rolling with the compaction device down

The new snow groomed out nicely

Report for January 14, 2021

We've had a lot going on, if not a lot of snow falling on the trails. The entire system was roll-packed after the small storm over the weekend, and there continues to be some OK rock skiing throughout. It improves as one skis up and around the shadowy Canada Bonita ridge. Above Point J, it's not bad at all. Below that, use extreme caution and learn where those big volcanic rocks hide and wait to take your ski's base from you.

Camp May Rd practice area was regroomed last evening (Wednesday) to run some tests on the machines. There is both skate and classic set, and the snow is great.

The machines have required a lot of tweaking this year, so perhaps the dearth of snow has been a semi-blessing in disguise for the groomers. We *might* now have them all back in working order, but it has been a bit frustrating. It was just a bunch of little things, and that joyride that the vandals perpetrated back in September did a real number to our poor old Ranger. Little gremlins keep surfacing, but hopefully we're past that now. We'll see. It had a clutch failure and the anti-sway arm stabilizer was completely broken and required full replacement. That is always a fun type of job in our teeny-tiny shop space. For now, we're able to groom if we get new snow, so that's always the focus.

We'll report back on things if one of the other groomers can peel away and refresh things. Plans are in the works for this evening.

The NOAA is predicting some type of snowstorm for late in the weekend or perhaps Monday-Wednesday timeframe. The prediction seems to be improving, so hopefully we'll be able to stay in business. It's getting a bit lean out there in places...

Not much to say...except that we NEED MORE SNOW!!! (January 6)

 Not much to say here.  I haven't personally been up to groom, having to deal with a few mechanical issues with the machines.  Cameron Staples has kept things in shape, but we are running perilously low on snow and so the skiing reflects that.  Be SUPER careful when you head out into the trail network.  There are great sections, then some that are just super thin with obstacles hiding just below the surface.  

This next storm looks like it'll only give us a glancing blow, but hopefully something will come out of it.  We'll see.  Do your snow dances!

Happy New Year - January 4 Report

 Happy New Year to everyone.  Hope you've been able to get out and ski on our thin but well-maintained snowpack.  The trails have remained in pretty decent ski shape, despite the dearth of snow.  Ugh...we need a big storm!

Anyway, we'll keep working on making things skiable as long as we can.  This is the very reason why we keep the trails maintained all year and hang up all of that fencing.  We have to be ready for this very scenario.

I think we'll keep trying to groom every 3rd day or so for now, so keep that in mind.  It should be pretty OK skiing for about another week or so, if it doesn't get too warm.  

The upper ski trails are best, and the lower road was groomed the other night as well.  The lower half of the meadows are not so good, so use EXTREME caution in those areas.  The front hill is also very rocky, so the advice is to ski carefully up, then take your skis off and walk that rocky section (walk on the high side of the trail, PLEASE). 

Keep your fingers crossed for more snow!!!