Making your mark is an act of courage. In this case, that mark is two parallel lines in the snow through the woods. Now, maybe courageous isn’t the right descriptor in the momentary scope of efforts like plowing a machine with a sled behind it through the snow, or cutting brush, or fixing equipment or painting signs. But when it comes to keeping at it for almost fifty years, I believe that word is not hyperbolic.

Yes, the Chief ate a windshield after telling the lead machine not to be too greedy grooming and tracking the Pence-Hoyt connector today. Heck, yesterday he put Mom’s 4Runner in the ditch on South Rd. Maybe this is No Country for Old Men.

About as many Rangers as we could muster were out on the trails today, setting tracks for the weekend. They turned out pretty excellent. Our advice to you: don’t miss these next few days.

Twelve days after, we finally got on top of Uller. As of tonight, Uller’s western loops are tracked, The main stem from the west end of the loops all the way to Pence is packed. It’s not pretty yet; well, the woods are and the snow is awesome; but the trail doesn’t look like we want it yet. We’ll get to that.

We can’t express our gratitude enough to all those intrepid souls who have taken their time (and their snow shoes) to foot pack out ahead of us. They did a wonderful job; made it easy for us to run the machines through and gave us a safety line to get back to when we floundered on the 800 pound machines.

We’re hearing from people going out on their own and snow shoeing/back country ski breaking trail out on Uller. They must be a little like me: can’t relax for the winter until Uller, Weber Lk to Pence, Scribner’s Meadow to Iron Belt is packed and groomed.

We thank them. The Ranger with all the time in the world spent nearly five decades stomping on snow one way or another and parts of his stomping equipment is a little worn out. He can only do so much any more.

It helps in a huge way when others get out there and work over a part of the trail they know.

Thanks.

In case you’re wondering, we had a bit of an ‘old-timey’ snow event around here. Ah, somewhere around 16” (40cm) of rich, creamy snow fell on us the last two days. Yesterday, an hour before sunset, the winds switched around off the lake when the barometer began to rise and we had ‘lake effect’, which we’re famous for.

Snow conditions at the beginning of the New Year allowed us to set Montreal up like an Olympic race day. Even though it was pretty darn cold, the moisture content of our latest snow, mixing in with the old snow below, produced a wonderful, fast track for cold weather skiing.

We actually got out on our skis and enjoyed some brisk air and the excellent snow.

We met a handful of other skiers out there too. They were happily impressed with the tracking techniques we use (when we can), and made numerous comments on how fun it is to ski when the trail works with them instead of against them on the changing terrain.

Our little pre-holiday clipper gave us just enough new snow to try and start all over again.

We took a light trip over Montreal with the 6’r, track sled and saw. 95% of Montreal is very good. It’s that 5% that may scratch your skis or trip you up. Look ahead! There are sticks, leaves, bark and for all I know, frogs that got blown in from Arkansas last Wednesday, out there.

That said, there are some wonderful stretches of tracks to enjoy.

Mom, who was a ski-jumper in the ‘50’s, said there would be days like this. It’s not like we haven’t had some wonderful winter weekend so far this season; but it’s still hard to handle.

All that work, yet we’re glad to report, from what we’ve been able to observe, that it looks like 80-90% of the base on Montreal has survived.

We hope you got out on some trail today. The snow we got was like whipped cream with egg whites. Too bad it had to come from a storm that was so ugly to the south of us.

We’re not sure of other ski trail crews, they probably have it completely figured out; but for us, grooming and track setting can be a very complicated operation. Bear with us as we try to describe what goes on for a simple 6” snowfall grooming evolution. Try not to laugh at the circus that goes on in the Trail Chief’s head.

We’re glad to report that Montreal is 100% packed and tracked, the below zero temperatures overnight are freezing out any and all soft spots and it’s READY. TO. SKI!

We hope you’re ready too.

The million dollar storm gave us some excellent early winter snow.

Get out. Get on it. Ski Freely.

We’re starting. We packed the Grade, Verner’s, Lempi’s, Calucchi’s, Deep Rock and the Pence Loop. Things got a little warm by noon, and the ground is still working on the snow at the bottom of the the column; but with tonight’s air in the teens, things should freeze down pretty well.

This is the beginning of our 48th year of ski trail work. We are committed, again, to provide the best winter recreation trails as we possibly can.

I don’t know what you believe in; it doesn’t matter.  When we were either kicked out of the Garden or we dropped out of the trees, one of the first things we must have encountered was a trail.  I can’t believe we stood there and didn’t wonder where that trail led.

Late fall. There was even a squall of snow while four of us cleaned out the old ‘Core House’ (better known as the ‘Powderhouse’), hauled some special rocks from Rock Cut and built a fire ring.

I spent a good day working with an Iron County Forestry Department forester out on Uller. We took the ICF gator from Weber Lake to ‘Harold’s Pass’ along the main stem. There were quite a few dead and wind falls to get off the trail. We like to do it under these conditions… not the 15-30 cm of wet, heavy snow we used to have to do it in. I really detest digging through snow to get to something we could have removed on a nice fall day.

October. It’s time to try to do as much as we can now, rather than waiting until there’s half a shin’s worth of snow to wade through. So, it’s time.

All the signs point to a ‘standard issue’ winter… meaning who knows what we’ll see. The dry we had throughout the summer has made the perennial wet spots hard and passable.. for now… so it’s a good time to get some things done.

I know you feel it. The changing season is calling us.

I read yesterday’s journal after it got posted. I noticed something I missed.

The theme yesterday was supposed to be “Hi, we’re still out here, we have these things going on, welcome summer…” and we got all that on there; but there was something else going on that apparently was a little too subtle for me last night…

Welcome Summer! The days are getting shorter. Just doesn’t seem right; but here we are. The spring flowers have done their part, the mid-summer flowers are out and busy. Our nearly 3 weeks of rainless weather has suppressed the biting but population to a very tolerable level. It’s definitely time to enjoy these wonderful days north of the 45th parallel.

What a glorious day! Finally a bit of spring up here. Well yeah, the black flies came out and bit us here and there but; we’ll take it.

We scheduled a work session on the Montreal Trail Portals project and actually didn’t freeze or get precipitated on for once. The concerns about the quality of the poles and their mass were unwarranted. The minute the saw dug into the poles we could all smell western cedar or tamarack. Excellent wood for this project, tight grained and light! Two of us could muscle them up on to the trailer we borrowed! Our plans B, C, and D were quickly forgotten.