Greetings Sledders,

Holy crap what a weekend. I knew the minute the lightning flashed that we were in real trouble because that meant super moist snow and it also means that we will be down a groomer because the old technology drag that D1 pulls will not process wet snow, strike one. The snow couldn’t have come on a worse day because we wouldn’t have time to get to it before the traffic hit, strike two. I thought that I would get in D1 out in front of D2 and at least do some blade work but I was doing more harm than good and had to bail on him and all he could do was a single pass Friday night. Not quite a strike but close.

Saturday morning I got up to face better than a foot of heavy snow and my first obligation is to Fay’s and it’s guests and while plowing my phone was ringing and people were telling me about downed trees, strike three. Once I got the place so everyone could get in and out and Sandy could get to all the rooms I hit the trail at 10:00am and I figured I’d go out and move a few trees and that would be that. OH SO WRONG Mister "this won’t be a big deal" there were trees everywhere and eight and a half hours later I finally got the Lovells trail cleared. I returned in time for the night shift to go out and do the main loop. By this time the trail had stiffened to the point that D1 was back in the game. The tandem run on the main is 42 miles and is always done in 6 to 6.5 hours max., at one stretch of pines on trail 79 it took the guys 4 hours to go 12 miles, that’s how many trees were down.

All in all it took us less than 24 hours to clear the main trails and I finished the tree pushing extravaganza on a little used trail segment to the south yesterday, it too had a mile plus stretch of pines and was horrible.

You have to remember that we are as long as an over the road trailer working on 20′ or less wide trails amongst the still upright trees, lots of neck busting turning around and I for one am glad it’s over. We didn’t keep up with traffic as far as grooming goes and I never expected to this past weekend or any other weekend for that matter as it’s basically two against several thousand. Not real good odds, but we did our best.

The drivers would like to extend a huge thank you to all of you that give us a thumbs up and recognize our efforts and we hope you understand that last weekend was one that we have never experienced in terms of the severity of fallen trees coupled with the depth and moisture of the snow that we recieved.

I rode today with my good friend Robin C. and we travelled on our trails that were pretty good but going south fast. With temps going to 50 tomorrow and beyond I think the trails’ days are numbered and that number is probably on one of your hands, no need to take either boot off to count further.

It’s 45 and Sunny today and the forecast out to the 15th is calling for more of the same. So I guess I’ll wrap this deal up for another year. This has been a year of RIRN (ride it right now) to say the least and it’s been one of the toughest to report on. We try very hard both in the report and on the phone to provide you with information that doesn’t set the expectation bar too high, we would rather set it lower and have you walk away happy enough to become a volunteer groomer jockey which would allow me more time to go play. Hopefully we were successful.

On behalf of Sandy and myself and the Girls who only speak Dog, have a good off season.
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

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