We were up and groomed Friday after I sent the grooming report, went out to Baldy, and were going to go out Skyline but the fog was so thick we couldn’t see. We actually rescued a couple on Baldy that were lost. We did make it around McIntyre, into the store twice, and the Powerline trail.
You might have noticed I made it to McDougal highway crossing, but got stuck several times climbing the hill out of Elbow Creek and had a lot of dozing to do in the Hill Camp/Corwin corner. Any incline was hard to climb, had no traction from the deep snow. It took me over 4 hours to go to McDougal and back. We have not groomed the Shumway side due to the hill climb to get back up on top. We hope to be able to come downhill on that this week.
I was up on Saturday, it was almost zero visibility, we couldn’t see snowmobiles crossing the highway when we were right there. I spent 2 1/2 hours working on the 08 and decided to come home as it was too foggy to be safe.
Several snowmobiles stopped at the groomer shed and thanked us for getting the trails opened up in these deep conditions, but said it was too foggy to be out on the trails. We appreciate their support and understanding.
It is intermittent rain showers today into tonight with temperatures around 35 at the snotel sites and on the ODOT website. We should get back to grooming mid-week as temperatures should come down Tuesday.
Thanks,
Jess Thompson TTF grooming chairman