Greetings Anxious Sledders,

It won’t be long now the Rabbi declared with significant confidence.

It also won’t be long before Winter has a solid hold on the region and hopefully Mother Nature won’t cut us short of our average snowfall this year the way she did last year.

The first report of the season is always the longest due to introducing ourselves to folks that are new subscribers on the e-mail side of this thing and those that are new readers on the web side. I will format this propaganda in the usual fashion, categorized in a way that will allow you to pick and choose the propaganda that you wish to look at or avoid.

INTRO TO FAY’S:
We are Keith and Sandy and we have produced a trail report for the last ten years, working on number eleven. I schedule the pre-season trail maintenance, vehicle maintenance along with the grooming of the Grayling trail system for the AuSable Valley Snowmobile Assoc. Two of the three AVSA groomers are parked here next to the heated garage that is often used by our guests for sled repairs. We have an acre of parking for the unimportant over the road tow vehicle and you can park your sled right in front of your door at our single story facility.

You can ride directly from your room (technically it’s not from your room, it’s more like from just outside of your room) to the trails and head out in any direction that you choose.

Sandy doesn’t ride but I do when not in a groomer and I especially like to go off trail and will be happy to guide if given a little advance notice. There’s no charge for this service and those that have taken me up on this offer generally make it back, OKAY there are those two that haven’t been seen or heard from in a while. Just kidding, haven’t lost anyone yet.

ALL RIGHTY THEN; LET’S GET TO IT:

REPORTS:
You can expect reports to be generated on Monday and Wednesday and additional reports will be launched if it looks like a negative weather event is going to take place.

PRE-SEASON TRAIL WORK:
The trails are ready to go. Several times over the past years I did a shout out to sledders for help on the brushing aspect but it wasn’t necessary this year as most of the work needed entailed seat time in both John Deere tractors, basically disking and grading. All in all we totaled just over 200 man hours in the seats, a little brushing, routine maintenance on the vehicles, signing etc.

CURRENT CONDITIONS:
NOT YET. We picked up 4-5" last night and it’s been coming down lightly all day but that’s about to wind down by early tomorrow morning. There’s not enough to ride on and certainly not enough to even consider grooming. More looks to be on the way early next week. This can be a pretty good set up and here’s why. If we would have gotten 10" people definitely would have been riding and in doing so they are riding on unfrozen ground with no base and that is a perfect recipe for snirt, which is what happened last year. Once the sand is in it’s in and nothing but a start over thaw will make it go away. This way the 4-5" that we got has a chance to melt down a bit and start a base on it’s own. Might sound a little goofy but believe me the best thing to do is leave the trails alone for the moment, which is why I’m not plowing the drive way this go around. Sandy says it’s because I’m lazy but I beg to differ.

When the time comes,
Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls.

Next report will likely be early next week.

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Greetings Sledders,

Over is over,period. This has been the worst non-winter that we’ve seen in the ten years that we’ve been here in Grayling. It started out looking like a promising one then went to hell in a hand bag and never recovered as you well know.

Here’s a few numbers to share with you as a re-cap, we groomed 4570 miles that was accomplished with 640 volunteer man hours and spent 94 hours fixing stuff and the maint. hours are probably light as I don’t always account for a half hour here and there. Last year we groomed over 8000 miles with 1200 man hours consumed.

I must hand it to our guys and commend them for a job well done given what they’ve had to work with. GREAT JOB GUYS IN DOING WHAT YOU’RE NOT GETTING PAID TO DO !!!!

It is our hope that we have accurately communicated trail conditions to you via the internet and telephone during these snow starved times. It’s always difficult to report conditions when snowfall is skimpy as one person’s decent ride can be another’s worst nightmare.

In closing, thanks to all of you that chose Fay’s Motel as your destination this season, we appreciate your patronage more than you will ever realize.

Please Be Safe at whatever it is that you do in the off season, Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.