When do clubs start and stop grooming?
This varies depending on geographical location, weather, and trail conditions. Each club will post when they start and stop grooming for the season.
What is a groomed trail?
A groomed atv trail is a trail where the club has, through mechanical means, removed the air or “fluffiness” from the snow, compacted the snow and smoothed the surface to create a hard running surface.
When does a club start and stop grooming?
The Rusagonis ATV club uses the following criteria when deciding when to start grooming:
- Have the water crossing and puddles frozen? Drags do not create a smooth surface when ice and snow develop on the bottom of them.
- Is the snow depth greater than ten inches to prevent damage to the grooming equipment?
- Is the temperature below freezing during the evening to harden up the trail?
- Is the long-term weather forecast predicting freezing temperatures and no rain?
- Are there volunteers available to operate the groomer? Volunteers have lives too and are not always available.
- Is the snowmobile club grooming? Many trails in the Rusagonis area are shared between the atv club and the snowmobile club during the winter months and it is counterproductive for the atv club to groom if the snowmobile club is not grooming.
What are the steps in the grooming process?
Once the club has decided to start grooming the first step is for the club to run the rollers on the trails. Rolling the trail compacts the thin layer of snow received early in the season. Compacting the snow fills in the low spots of the trail and creates a compact base. This helps prevent damage to the drags early in the season by covering rocks and stumps, which can unexpectedly and suddenly stop forward motion.
Once the rollers have created a suitable base, the club will use pull type drags to aerate, compact and smooth the snow. Grooming operations usually take place late in the week to prepare the trails for the weekends, although this is snow fall, and volunteer depended. The club prefers to send the groomers out in pairs for safety and to ensure complete coverage of the trail width.
When working in pairs, the lead groomer will compact the right side of the trail and the trailing groomer will compact the left side of the trail. Club volunteers spend 10 hours to 12 hours per day per machine grooming, with it taking a min of two days to groom after a light snow fall, longer if the snow is deep.
If the snow depth is beyond the compaction ability of the drags, the club will delay grooming to allow normal atv traffic to help compact the snow. The clubs’ drags are not heavy enough to compact more than a few inches of snow and the side by sides, even with tracks, have a limited ability to pull, unlike the large, heavy and expensive groomers and drags the snowmobile club uses.
What can I do as a rider do to help keep the trails in good shape?
When riding groomed trails, riders are reminded to keep their machines in four-wheel drive and lower the air pressure in their tires by several psi (single digit if possible) as this helps prevent spinning of tires and creating “speed bumps”.
Riders are also advised to stager their tire tracks from the rider in front of them, this helps prevents ruts from forming and aids in compacting the entire surface of the trail.
Finally, riders are reminded that freshly groomed trails need twelve to twenty-four hours to harden up so that wheel tracks do not develop, please do not follow the groomer on fresh snow.
How will I know when the club starts grooming?
The club will post on Facebook and the club’s website when grooming starts or ends for the season. In addition, the club will regularly update the Quad NB mapping app as trails are opened or closed due to weather conditions and snow depth.