Two reports today!
- Sled trail report…Karen and Jenny set out at 8am this morning for a likely record breaking cold temp hike. -27 degrees!!!! I stayed home and drank coffee! They hiked the main sled trail to the back of the forest and it was in great hard packed condition. 6km hike out and back…long enough for me to have another coffee.
- Single track report. 12:30. -15 degrees. I headed out on my own to test out the new groomer. Basically I rode my bike carrying snowshoes just in case and towed the groomer. The stick was fairly well packed so it skidded along quite well. Thanks to Bernie yesterday for hiking it in the first 2km weighted with a log! Awesome! So 4km done. Then the lollypop. No one had been on it yet after the team van snowshoe team got out yesterday to pack it down. This was a bit harder going but all rideable towing the groomer along behind. This is where the groomer really made the most difference. It worked really well smoothing out the trail. Another 4km done. I’d say getting out beforehand to snowshoe the loop was key. Cheers to the snowshoers! I ditched the TVGG and tested out a bit of the newly groomed trail and between the snowshoeing and groomer it is now in excellent shape. So the idea is now whoever is up for it can go out and bike to the groomer, hook up and ride with it or pick a new section and pull it while snowshoeing. Then leave it where you like and someone else can go from there. I have left it on the lollypop, left from the red arrow tree. My suggestion? Ride to it, hook it up, ride to where the ridge trail enters the lollypop, snowshoe the ridge out and back pulling the groomer then finish the ride from there. After that we can finish joining the ridge connector into the hill bypass and Max trail. All but the ridge connector section have been snowshoed. Or just head out and ride the stick and lollypop and enjoy, they are back in excellent shape which still gives us a solid 12km ride. Some groomer notes: in my opinion it worked much better hooked to the bottom of my backpack then to the bike…it just felt much better. So I’d advise checking your backpack for somewhere to hook into. There is a carabiniere left with the groomer and rope. It seems to want to flip over when going fast downhill or over a log so just keep an eye on it once in a while. If you do use the groomer could you please let me know where it is left (e-mail, text or use the “contact tab”). Then I can post up it’s location for the next eager person to get a work out to make a plan to expand our single track options. So there you are, single track is good to go, it’s fast, like carving corners and humming Fat tires fast!
