Greetings Sledders,

A very quick update on the lumber factor.

We are making progress, with all the trails now passable by sled although there are stretches where you’ll be bobbin’ and weavin’ through the leaners and we are continuing to bust butt to get them out of the way on a daily basis. Except of course last Tuesday.

The Frederic trail (#7) is open from 4 Mile rd. to Frederic and is being groomed as I write this. The Blue Bear connector (#79) is open and will be groomed tomorrow. My hope is that we will complete trail #679 from Frederic to Blue Bear on Friday which will open our main loop for at least a single pass each weekend evening. The Lovells trail (#47) still has 3.5 to 4 miles of leaners and is passable, so we felt it best to switch to the higher traffic volume trails and get at least one groomer on the move. Lovells should be completed by Sunday or Monday I would guess.

TRAIL CONDITIONS:

I’m putting the conditions as fair to good at this time. We anticipate lot’s of traffic over the weekend with little to no snow in the forecast and everyone that has any experience with this scenario knows that the system will take a hit.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

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

Greetings Sledders,

Sorry for the delay in getting this out but I was vacationing at our winter address, 7830 John Deere Dr. the last few days and unfortunately I don’t have online access there.

To recap: We got 6"plus of wet snow and panned the system, this was followed closely by a light rain which turned to freezing rain and an additional 6" plus after that.

The trails were in great shape with probably the best base building weather combination that we’ve seen in a long long time. The only problem was the fact that on some segments Sledders could only go a few hundred feet at best before running into a tree blockade which is what we’ve been diligently working to resolve. Last March we had a similar situation and I would tell you that that event was a walk in the park compared to this one. I’ll give you and example. Today four of us plus a tractor worked all day to clear 1 mile of trail. When I turned the corner and looked down the straight I literally could not see the trail. Really ugly deal.

I suspect that the fact that some segments were impassable that traffic shifted to the passable segments which probably had the usual outcome and until we can get back to our regular grooming schedule where I can get first hand visuals I’m going to leave the rating as fair. What good is any trail regardless of the snow if you can’t get through to the other end.

My best guesstimate at completing this neck aching task is unfortunately no earlier than Thursday, although I should have a better feel for overall conditions before that.

We will keep you informed.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

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