shout out to groomers

[Tracker]

just an FYI. To keep the trails smooth and easy to groom, and groom trails faster, I suggested to a certain snowmobile club that either at end of summer or late fall when not too wet. Take the endloader or grader down the trails and eliminate the moguls. sure there will be wash outs and such and after a rain some moguls. but for the most part ever since they took my advice, they have been loving it and doing now for about 7 years or so. Man does it work good. The operators say they can go much faster as they are not filling holes every 3 feet, just grooming along for the most part. and when heavy sled traffic the moguls DO NOT build up like a trail that never gets scrapped. the whole club has noticed a huge difference in moguls. hardly any now. just a thought you might want to bring up to your club for next season. One place you can all see this effect happening every year is in the seney grand marias area. some of that trail where its super wide on the way up north it is super flat underneath due to road surface under the trail, but its the same effect. and the area that does this to the atv/sled trail it is mostly sand and it doesn't become unsmooth like you think it would with traffic. just wanted to throw that out there since all the grooming talk lately

 

[groomerdriver]

Hopefully with more money eventually being made available to clubs in Wisconsin, this type of off season maintenance will become affordable for more clubs!

Thanks for the great post!

 

[ddhanna]

Hopefully with more money eventually being made available to clubs in Wisconsin, this type of off season maintenance will become affordable for more clubs!

Thanks for the great post!

You are making the assumption that CAP/STEP will result in more money in the segregated fund. We have been advised that revenues are way short due to lower than expected trail pass sales along with extended 3yr registration period at the old 2yr price. It is entirely possible (I hope not) that we will have less money in the bucket than before.

 

[snobuilder]

Our club doubled membership.... even at that it means about $650.00 to our club funds. AWSC gets an almost equal share of the $25.00 we collect per membership. Overall the biggest boon will be realized by the AWSC which is an organizational group. Maybe they will get better offices????....IDK.

If instead of cap step, we simply raised registration fees, that registration money, minus a small administrative cost, goes into the segregated trail fund.....and guess what....none of the opportunity riders would have to scramble for a damn trail pass if and when the snow falls and trails finally open up for a day or 2 so we can take a short ride.

 

[ddhanna]

Yup, AWSC had this one all figured out (for them).

 

[xcr440]

Back to the original post:

One of the local clubs by me (Hastings, MN) goes out in the fall and knocks down all the plowed lumps across the fields before they freeze. Their trails are always better sooner than the rest around me.

It is a great idea that does work, and fortunately the VOLUNTEERS in that area have the support of the land owners to do it.

 

[snocrazy]

This is why we have merged an ORV and Snowmobile club in Alger county.
Combining the grants ($$$) to make it better for both where the trails are shared. Also getting more trails opened. It makes so much sense to have a graded flat surface before the snow. Combining the 2 you get the best of both worlds if managed properly.

 

[MZEMS2]

As for the original post, sounds like that idea would and does work great for clubs that don't deal with crop land and such. Many of our trails are on private land that changes every growing season, or the owner doesn't want us in there making changes to their land. Awesome idea for the areas that never "change" though.

 

[goofy600]

As for the original post, sounds like that idea would and does work great for clubs that don't deal with crop land and such. Many of our trails are on private land that changes every growing season, or the owner doesn't want us in there making changes to their land. Awesome idea for the areas that never "change" though.

MZEMS2 what about seeing if land owners with crop land will let you at least drag the stretch where the trail goes through the fields? Back in the day 30 plus years ago my dad had a farmer friend that would let him use a tractor and disc to do a path through the fields to help smooth out the plowed fields. Just a thought that has probably come up before but it worked back then.

 

[GTL]

Back to the original post:

One of the local clubs by me (Hastings, MN) goes out in the fall and knocks down all the plowed lumps across the fields before they freeze. Their trails are always better sooner than the rest around me.

Must be in Rice County or Goodhue County or maybe the Farmington group, because the rest of Dakota Trails is the last to be groomed and then you have to call and bitch about it to get it done.

 

[MZEMS2]

MZEMS2 what about seeing if land owners with crop land will let you at least drag the stretch where the trail goes through the fields? Back in the day 30 plus years ago my dad had a farmer friend that would let him use a tractor and disc to do a path through the fields to help smooth out the plowed fields. Just a thought that has probably come up before but it worked back then.

Oh yeah, that kind of thing is done in the fall. Land owners have been real good about letting us mow corn stalks and such, and disk tilled fields. It definitely helps. This year we have a couple stretches that we couldn't get disked due to the late rains that came, and they SUCK right now because of low snow. Got tossed around in the tractor overnight last night again. Maybe it's smoother on a sled...LOL..Our trails are closing AGAIN tomorrow due to lack of snow. There's a nice ice base in alot of places, but we need snow

 

[LoveMyDobe]

This is nothing new around Iron River

This is what Trails North Atv club does all summer, grooms trails. That would be my Hubby out there