It’s not glamorous, but somebody’s gotta do it …. Grooming the ski trails

If it’s been snowing, the volunteer groomers will be out there, smoothing the cross-country ski trails at Palouse Divide.

There will be some laughing, maybe some cussing, and something might get broken. Or at least bent. It’s all in a day’s work for the groomers.

I was out there recently with a couple of other groomers, piloting a snowmobile hitched to a drag trailer that leaves a smooth, corduroy-striped ribbon of snow in its wake. But it wasn’t a day of genteel snowmobiling.

Dozens of trees were down across the trails, so we spent most of the day wallowing around in deep snow with chainsaws. One by one, we cut the fallen trees away, cleared the trail, then moved on to the next fallen tree.

Loud chainsaws and snowmobiles made communication difficult, but the group worked out a wordless strategy to coordinate our efforts. By day’s end, we’d fused into a well-oiled machine.

Grooming cross-country ski trails is physically demanding work, but the volunteers who do it are repaid by the smiles of satisfied skiers.

A nice place for skiing

By road, the Palouse Divide Nordic Ski Area is about 42 miles northeast of Moscow, Idaho. Coming from the north, it is about 34 miles from St. Maries, at the southeastern end of Lake Coeur d’Alene. The area offers 22 miles of groomed trails, most of which are on U.S. Forest Service land; a generous private landowner also allows access.

Volunteer groomers are drawn from the ranks of the Palouse Divide Nordic Ski Club; most of the club’s members live Moscow or Pullman. The groomers are a diverse bunch, led by a Forest Service retiree who lives near Orofino, Idaho, 80 miles away, and a personal injury attorney whose law practice is based in Bellingham. Other groomers include a retired cabinet maker, a retired contractor, a retired farmer, and a washed-up newspaper editor.

“It’s my retirement activity for the winter,” said Pete Minard, a 76-year-old Forest Service veteran who has been grooming at Palouse Divide since 2005. “I don’t ski much anymore because I spend most of my time grooming.

“I’ve got the time, I’ve got the health, and I really enjoy the work. On the good days, it’s pretty satisfying to leave a nice-looking trail when I’m done.”

An art and a science

“The true art of grooming is being able to envision the skier’s experience and set the track in a way that the skier will really enjoy,” said Tom Mumford, a Bellingham attorney who moved back to his hometown of Pullman. “This has to do with where you place the track, how wide you make the trail, and how soft and smooth you can make the trail without destroying it.”

The first order of business after a big storm is to pack down the snow and clear the trail of fallen trees. The tow-behind drag trailers are left in a storage shed on nearby private land, and the groomers head out on snowmobiles – usually in groups of two or three. Each snowmobile carries a wide-scoop grain shovel because getting stuck is always a possibility; chainsaws are stowed in plywood scabbards permanently mounted on the rear of each sled.

“The first thing is you’ve got to build a base,” Minard said, “so often you have to run the (snowmobiles) over it first.”

Once the base is packed down, and the downed trees have been cut away, it’s time to start grooming.

The first pass is usually with a weighted plastic roller with raised ribs, much like a culvert pipe under a road. The roller is followed by another snowmobile towing an actual piece of culvert pipe that’s been flattened to resemble a toboggan with an upswept nose. After that comes a drag unit with a hard, plastic “comb” that digs into the snow to create the familiar corduroy pattern.

The final pass is made by one of two highly specialized groomers; one is 50 inches wide, while the big unit grooms a 74-inch swath. Both groomers have knives that move up and down, chopping the snow like a harrow. The groomers also set the narrow, parallel tracks used by traditional, Nordic-style skiers.

When everything goes smoothly, it’s poetry in motion. When things don’t go smoothly, it’s a lot less fun.

When things go wrong

One morning in early January, following a particularly heavy snowfall, a trio of groomers gathered at the equipment shed. They saddled up and went to work on Big Loop, a 5.5-mile round trip. There were a lot of downed trees, but the group made slow, steady progress and returned to the shed shortly before 2 p.m.

At 3 , they struck out again, heading for a 2.3-mile circuit known as Little Loop. The snow was deep and unpacked, the trail was tight and narrow. Downed trees were plentiful.

The lead sled wasn’t towing anything, but the trailing sleds each towed a drag. Shortly after 4 , with darkness fast approaching, the group reached a steep, side-hill stretch of trail that was riddled with difficulties. Yoked to the heavy drag units, the snowmobiles began to bog down. Then the drags began slithering off the trail, pulling snowmobiles over with them.

Then one of the snowmobiles began having transmission issues. The groomers opened the engine cowling and, under the light of their headlamps, they determined the problem was down there in the mechanism – and it couldn’t be fixed in the field.

Enveloped in darkness, with another storm forecast to arrive that night, the group decided to cut and run.

They unhitched both drag units and abandoned them next to the trail. With Mumford in the lead, they buzzed out of the woods and made their way back to the storage shed without further incident.

Hearing the story afterward, Minard said the group made the right decision. Given the conditions, dropping the drag units and sprinting for the shed was perfectly reasonable.

“Personally, when I’m driving along on a snow machine, I’m paying a lot of attention to what’s going on because, over the years, I’ve found I don’t like getting stuck,” Minard said .

“And I haven’t gotten stuck in years.”

Happy ending

Getting stuck is part of the learning curve for new groomers, Mumford conceded, but it shouldn’t deter them from the real goal.

“Hopefully, as we learn, we can become excellent sculptors who give the skiers a true sense of joy, allowing them to trust the trail and just enjoy the scenery.”