It's September 1st, and although it is astronomically still summer for another 3 weeks, meteorologically it seems like autumn. And after all, for those of us who really love skiing, summer is just a rather long thaw between ski outings.
You may recall that last winter a significant portion of our trails at the north end could not be opened, because of logging operations carried out on behalf of the land owner. The loggers left a big mess behind: huge piles of branches on our trails, signage damaged or completely disappeared, and trail surfaces consisting of humps and holes, ridges and ruts, where the ground was previously fairly smooth.
In the spring and early summer, I got help from a few of our regular skiers to clear away the debris and smooth out the trail surfaces. Since then, I've done more work cutting out stumps and roots, and replacing missing or damaged signs. Over the past weekend, I've been over all the trails with a riding mower, so that weeds and grass are under control.
The result of all this work is that we will be able to open everything this coming winter, and in some cases the trail will even be a little better than before. Some sections will definitely be wider than they were. And the loggers left us one small gift: a new trail section (logging road) right at the north end, cutting across the North Plateau loop, creating 2 smaller loops. It's about 200m long, and will be called Plateau Shortcut. It will give me a couple of different options in grooming procedure.
The long range weather forecast for this winter is also good. It looks like we may have a pattern similar to last winter, with a La Nina in the North Pacific.
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