Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask!
By Biskit

I receive a lot of e-mails concerning groomers and trail grooming. As someone who drives the groomer day in and day out, I find it hard believe how many snowmobiler's are unaware of how a groomer works and what is involved in grooming a trail. In this article I will attempt to explain in terms everyone can understand how the trails are prepared for your riding pleasure.

The following scenario would be typical for a snowmobiler’s day especially on the weekend. It is 9:30 A.M., the sun is out and you have just finished breakfast. Ready for a great day of riding, you get the sled all warmed up and hit the trails. You say to yourself, " Wow! These trails are smooth." The miles fade into the distance behind you and we know you are having fun. After a wonderful ride to your destination, it is time to head back to the motel or cabin. As you return to your camp or motel room, that trail that was smooth eight hours ago, now looks like the U.S Army had used it for target practice or it looks like a mountain road in Afghanistan. How did it get this way, you ask? Believe it or not, this question has been posed to me in e-mails hundreds of times. The answers are not simple because good trails depend on a number of factors, temperature, amount and kind of snow, and the traffic during the day. Snow can be fluffy like cotton, wet and sloppy, granular like sugar and any one of a hundred variations in between. As snowmobiles travel over the smooth trails, the packed snow is loosened a bit as each sled passes. Each machine tends to sink in where the snow is soft and the harder portions of the trail become the tops of the growing moguls. Spinning tracks, doing doughnuts and speeding around corners loosens the snow even faster. After hundreds of sleds have passed over a trail, it becomes mogul alley. In addition, temperatures above freezing are deadly to any trail no matter where it is located and how much snow is on it.

The Chippewa Snow Chasers groom our trails every night, weather permitting but there is no way that we can keep those trails smooth 24 hours a day. There are a few things in life that fall under the heading of impossible and freshly groomed trails 24/7 is an impossible dream. Two groomers cannot keep 81 miles of trails smooth when hundreds of sleds rip up and down them, spinning tracks, sliding around corners and tearing up the fresh groom. We can go out at night and try to repair the damage and make the trails smooth for the next day, but the next day the hundreds of sleds are back, tearing up the freshly groomed snow.

After hundreds of riders have torn up the trails, it is the responsibility of the groomer driver to fix the damage and make it smooth for the next day. Grooming requires that we first fill the tractor with diesel and fill up the thermos with a lot of coffee because we are in for an all night trip. We leave our home base at about 5pm. We start late because we need to groom the trails when there are fewer sleds on them. Lower traffic volume means the trail has a better chance to set up and is much safer for everyone involved. We are now rolling down the trail at a speedy 5 to 8 miles per hour. We look out ahead of our front blade and all we can see is moguls! It’s going to be a long night! We drop our drag as low is it can go. The drag is that big long thing we pull behind the grooming tractor. We have to get the blades of the drag down to the bottom of the moguls. If we only skim the top of the mogul, then we are wasting our time. If we cut off the top of the mogul, snow held in the drag will be deposited in the low spots between the moguls. The trail will look smooth behind the drag but it is not. The first snowmobile that travels down such a trail will start a wavy motion, because he is hitting hard snow (the top of the mogul) and soft snow (the snow between the moguls) and in no time the moguls will be built up again by the sled traffic. By running our blades on the front of the drag as low as we can go, we take the whole mogul out. Now that the front blade of the drag has taken out the mogul, the snow is funneled through a series of other blades before it reaches the pan. (The pan is located at the very back of the drag.) As the snow goes under the pan, it gets flattened out and packed down.

Groomers call the snow that comes out from under the pan "The Ribbon". Every groomer operator loves a good ribbon. Now comes the most important part of grooming. The ribbon needs time and cold temperatures to set up. If the temperature is at or above freezing, the ribbon will not set up. On a warm night if I get out of the groomer to stretch and take a break and walk on the ribbon, my footprints will be three or four inches deep. If these conditions last, the trail will not hold up the following day to all of the sled traffic. When it is cold out and we have some new snow, the ribbon will set up and will harden up almost like concrete. When the weather is cold, the groomer operator is happy because the trails can then take a bigger beating and will last longer. We do use the front blade on the groomer as well. The large front blade is used when the moguls are really deep and when we have to bring snow back into a corner where the speed demons have thrown it out.

I hope you are still with me and are paying attention because you have learned something about making your trails smooth. I have explained how a mogul starts, what we do to get rid of them and how the ribbon looks and feels. I will now explain how one should treat the ribbon when you meet a groomer. When you are on a narrow trail, you must ride on the ribbon after you meet a groomer. When this happens, don't spin your track right away. Speed won't hurt the ribbon but stopping and then ripping it will. When you meet a groomer on a wide trail you probably say, "Wow fresh trails, but don't jump on the ribbon right away because the snow hasn’t had a chance to set up yet. If it is reasonably smooth on the old section, stay on the old section and let the new ribbon set up. If the trail is rough, by all means get on the smooth part since we don't want you to ride on rough trails. Just be careful how you treat the ribbon at first. There have been many times when I was grooming the trail at two o'clock in the morning. A couple sleds would follow me riding up and down spinning their tracks and doing doughnuts on the freshly groomed ribbon. These two idiots on those sleds ruined the riding on that section of the trail for the following day.

One Saturday this past season, I began grooming out of Hulbert at 6:00 p.m. I met what seemed like hundreds of sleds but by 11 p.m. the sled traffic was almost gone. I groomed down to Trout Lake and when I returned to Hulbert at 7:30 a.m. the next morning, the trail looked as if it hadn’t been groomed in over a week. Why was the trail destroyed in less than twelve hours? The answer that night was temperatures above freezing. Temperatures held in the mid-thirties until almost 5:00 a.m. Finally, when the temperature dropped, the ribbon began to set up, and since there were no sleds out ripping it up at 5:00 A.M., the trail that Sunday morning remained smooth until the weather warmed up again. Once the temperature climbed above the freezing mark, the trails quickly fell apart.

Weather is the major deciding factor in determining the condition of the trails and how long a freshly groomed trail lasts. Cold is good, colder is better and low sled traffic and a cold night insure a good ride the next day. There are times when I pray for wet snow. When we receive wet snow and then cold weather follows, our ribbon becomes like cement. There were times last winter when I groomed during a warm day and I felt like I was literally wasting my time. As soon as five sleds passed me, it did not even look like I had groomed. That is why we groom at night. The temperatures usually drop in the evening and the lower amount of sled traffic gives the ribbon time to set up. If you are sledding at night, remember don't tear up the ribbon because you are ruining it for everyone the next day.

I will end this groomer lesson on a final note. When you meet a groomer, there are three things you must do. First, get out of his way. The tractor and drag cannot get off the trail easily. A snowmobile can get off the trail much easier and remember a stuck sled is easier to get out than a stuck grooming tractor! Second, use the proper hand signals to let the groomer know how many sleds are behind you. It is nice to know if someone else is coming, especially if we are approaching a corner. Third, give the drivers a big thumbs up and let them know that you appreciate them volunteering hours of their time to help groom the trails. If you come up behind a groomer, wait until he sees you in his rear view mirrors. As soon as he can find a place to get off to the side, he will pull over, stop, and let you pass. A little patience on your part could avoid a nasty accident. Remember he is much bigger than you are!

Oh! I almost forgot. Another great way to keep the snowmobile trails smooth is to join a club. Without snowmobile clubs providing volunteer labor and raising money to help buy grooming equipment, your trail permit fees would need to be at least 10 or 15 times higher than they are today. Join a club, and participate in some of the events they sponsor throughout the year. Become a part of the 10 percent of snowmobilers who help with the trails. As more people participate, the job of keeping our trails in great condition becomes easier for everyone concerned.

Most all of the groomer operators involved in grooming are strictly volunteers. We do not receive pay for our time. We do it for the love of the sport and to provide our area with nice and smooth trails. Thanks for taking the time to read this long article. Your thumbs up and support of the clubs is the tonic that keeps volunteers going during those long lonely hours on the trail. By the way, have a great ride!