11/6/09  Still some decent base hiding in the shade up there, however, things are getting awfully thin anywhere that gets sun.  Grooming will be suspended until we get some more wintery weather.  

-Luke

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Grooming officially began today! We had been waiting on a usage permit from
the Forest Service. It was ratified today for this year, and years to come.
Conditions are as follows: The base has been established. Spring
conditions exist, such as the snow is set-up firmly in the morning,
softening up as the day progresses. Surface is still a little uneven in
areas, in spite of our efforts, and a few rocks are poking through. There
is a little grass and sprouts also still showing. This all being said, we
have laid down some corduroy, but I doubt it will last. We will groom as
conditions warrant, although by this weekend I anticipate some serious bare
spots. Bottom line: The ski season has begun, so... Get out the dancin'
shoes(snow dance) - we need more snow.

Randy

04/26 - Thursday We groomed this morning. Spring Conditions! We have lost
a lot of snow the last 2 days. Numerous narrow spots have shown up on the
trails. We had to shovel snow on Campground and Meadow just so one could
ski out to Upper UW and Phils and beyond. Upper UW is good with the
exception of one area of grass on the trail. Phils thru Vans has some
narrowing of the trails, but all have plenty of width with good skiing.
Ridge has numerous narrowing and bare spots along with a few flat rocks and
stumps. All this being said, grooming operations have ceased. We will
monitor the weekend storm to see if grooming is possible again.

Randy

04/24 Tuesday - Groomed Campground Meadow, and Phils thru Vans, Upper UW,
and Ridge. All trails groomed out pretty good. Including Campground, and
the upper part of Alder, which apparently hosted a parade sometime Monday
afternoon. The numerous footprints were made when the snow was at a
vulnerable point so they were very deep causing obvious safety concerns for
skiers. I make this point because we made several extra grooming passes and
still could not remove all the tracks. We will touch up the trails again
Wednesday.

Randy

04/20 Monday - No new.. Still dealing with last weeks. Campground, Meadow
Upper UW, and Phils have been groomed. We removed several blown down trees
and have snowmobile packed from Turnpike thru the end of Vans. We packed
the first half of the return side of Vans(not the part down into Haunted
Forrest), and also the return sides of Moose, Turnpike and Phils. Tuesday,
we intend to groom those areas that we snowmobile packed today, along with
the areas we groomed today.

Randy

<no subject>

04/19 Sunday - 2' of new. We were able to pack and somewhat groom
Campground, Upper UW and Ridge. Phils is rolled. We have some large trees
on the trail issue on Turnpike. The snow became too sloppy to continue our
efforts today. We will groom what have started, then we will attempt to
expand the skiable terrain on the morrow.

Randy

<no subject>

4/18 Saturday - Luke and I went up this afternoon when the roads opened.
The snow is too deep along side of the highway to drive into the parking lot
at Tie City. We went back to the rest area to talk to a snowplow driver to
see when the parking lot might get some attention. He promptly closed Happy
Jack road behind us. (I know, the Wyoming DOT website says it is open... It
was still closed as of 5pm, I was looking at the gate.) A Wyodot supervisor
said they needed a bigger piece of equipment to get the job done, and it
would be awhile before that happened. We will try again Sunday morning.

Randy