Trail Report #4 Winter 2014-2015

[Lee & Mary]

Trail Report #4 Winter 2014-2015

As the week has progressed our trails have improved, the groomer has been busy and all our trails are now considered open, with conditions ranging between marginal and good. Though some areas are thin, recent flurries have added a light layer of fresh powder that will provide some much needed cooling and lubrication on the hard packed base and icy trails areas as well as in locations where the trails run a road shoulder. Ride at your own risk. Be careful, there are very few other riders out in these remote areas to help you if you get stuck, breakdown or get hurt. Drive slow and watch out for rough areas or areas where open water is present, give yourself stopping room and don’t overdrive your line of sight.

VAST parking areas were cleared of the wet mess before things froze up.

Detailed trail conditions:
Last weekend’s weather was a strange wintery mix that varied greatly with just a small change in elevation or location. We were fortunate to be able to use that limited amount of wet snow to repair and smooth up problems that the warm up & heavy rains caused on Vast 98 in the EX 49 area. Now the packed base under Vast 98 is quite good in most places however there are a few dips and bumps that pop up unexpectedly. These and other areas that are typically rough, due to underlying rocks, though passable, these areas cannot be improved until we get more snow.
As of Monday 1/5/15 the Paul Stream Road (Vast98) is no longer being shared with trucks, the gate at Maidstone Lake Rd is now locked and this section is now for snowmobile use only. Tuesday the mix was compacted onto the road base and allowed to set up. VAST 98 as well as VAST 102, VAST 1, received a similar icy mix over 4” of snow which converted to a nice frozen granular when worked. This was just enough to fill some of the depressions and cover most rocks in most areas. These trails are reasonable BUT trail hazards, like open water bars, depressions and bumps occur unexpectedly and are not always apparent. Trail 1-A received more rain and warm weather, so it only has a thin base cover and several partially washed out water bars. There is not enough snow in there to make any additional improvement at this time. We would suggest avoiding 1-A for now as VAST #3-N (yellow bucket) is closed and though 3-S is open & packed to EX521 VAST 3 is closed from EX 521 to EX 522. So only VAST 315(to Kirby and Burke) is accessible at EX 521, there is no link back to VAST 1 at this point.
Our groomer has now been over all our trails including F-98 & F2 in Guildhall, the same but thinner winter mix enabled us to compact a base layer. The base seems solid, these trails are now considered open, the base is fairly good but thin.

CAUTION: TWO ACTIVE LOGGING OPERATIONS: #1 ON F-98 (about 2 miles beyond Ex 532 @ Freedom Way. #2 ON F-2 just before EX-64 (pipeline); these are small operations that you have to skirt around. PAY ATTENTION! Stay on the MARKED TRAIL… GO SLOW…. STAY AWAY FROM ANY EQUIPMENT OPERATING IN YOUR WAY UNTIL THE OPERATOR TELLS YOU TO GO!