What does the warm weather mean for the trails?
Unusually mild temperatures and rain in Revelstoke are having an impact on the Boulder and Frisby trails.
As most of you can probably understand, when the weather gets mild like this, the snowpack on our trails turns to slush and very easily gets whooped out.
Just like you, many of our staff are sledders, we’ve ridden the whooped-out trails and know how you are feeling right now.
In some areas, we know it’s unavoidable, but while we find ourselves in these mild and wet conditions, we need your help to look after the trails now more than ever.
Here are the most important things you can do to help:
1. The first and most important thing is to maintain a constant throttle speed.
2. If you stop on a trail, don’t blast the throttle when you take off again. This is sure to build up a lump of snow and lumps of snow turn into whoops.
3. If you see some whoops, please don’t use them as jumps. Obviously, they only get worse when you do that.
To learn some other valuable lessons about how you can help, visit our Blog.
With current conditions on the trails, you might think the frequency of our grooming has changed, but in fact, we are now grooming more than ever before.
The Revelstoke Snowmobile Club owns and maintains three snowcats, giving us complete control over our grooming program and allowing us to make adjustments when needed.
Grooming Schedule
We’re constantly making changes to improve our operations. Last year, we made changes to our grooming program to ensure rider experience and the trails are the best they can possibly be.
With the recent cold snap, the weather was on our side. Trails were in perfect condition because they had the opportunity to set up and freeze with overnight temperatures dipping to -25c and below.
Unfortunately, we haven’t been quite so lucky this week. For now, the only thing we can do is be patient and wait for those below zero temperatures to come back so the snow can freeze and bind together again.
To keep you in the know, here is our grooming program based on conditions.
Club’s grooming program
We groom 7 nights per week, conditions permitting.
On Thursday and Friday night, we have two cats on Boulder to groom every trail at least once.
Additionally, there is a groomer running on Friday and Saturday afternoons, operating on both Boulder and Frisby.
The variables are taken into consideration for our grooming schedule.
- The temperature is above freezing. This is the most challenging scenario we deal with. It doesn’t matter how much we groom, if the trails don’t freeze, we are fighting a losing battle. When it’s cold, the trails stiffen up and the snowmobiles do less damage to the trail. The trails are concrete in extremely cold weather, therefore requiring less grooming.
- New snow. The snow needs to be processed (compacted) before it can be groomed.
The evolution of Mountain Sleds helps us in the deep powder but has a negative impact on our groomed trails, particularly when the trails are slush.
The times have changed and now every Mountain Sled has a three-inch paddle, better suspension, a longer track, and more power (turbo), all improvements that can help deteriorate a groomed trail.
While the Revelstoke Snowmobile Club grooms the trails on Boulder and Frisby every night, it’s the rider with these new sleds that decide how long they last.
To read our latest grooming reports, visit our website.
To keep an eye on the latest Revelstoke weather, visit this link.