Seeley Lake Cross Country Ski Trails Get Better Each Year

SEELEY LAKE – Through the combined efforts of Seeley Lake Regional Outdoor Center for Kinetic Sports (SL ROCKS), Seeley Lake Nordic Ski Club (SLNSC) and the US Forest Service (USFS), the trails and accommodations at the Seeley Creek Nordic Trail System continue to show improvements each year. To update the public about changes to the yurt and the ski trails and to express appreciation for volunteer and community support, SL ROCKS invites the community to a Yurt Open House. The event will take place from 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. Jan. 13 at the Seeley Creek Nordic Trail System off of Cottonwood Lakes Road. Warm beverages and light refreshments will be available.

Vice President of SL ROCKS Jean Dickey said, "I continue to be so pleasantly surprised that when there's something that needs to happen, particularly when it's for the youth in our community, people show up to help out. We just want to say thank you to them."

The first change visitors will notice is a larger wood-burning stove in the yurt. The smaller stove used last year was unable to maintain uniform heat and required frequent wood feedings. The new stove requires less attention since more wood can be loaded into it at one time. Unless conditions make it impossible or unnecessary, groomers are out resetting the trails early every morning and so they have accepted the added responsibility of morning fire stewardship. That entails unlocking the yurt, shoveling snow off the stairs and starting the fire in the stove.

SL ROCKS is asking for volunteer stewards to tend the fire at noon and to close the yurt at 5 p.m. Specific duties and access to the sign-up calendar are posted on the left-hand sidebar of the SLNSC website, seeleylakenordic.org. The calendar can also be accessed from the SL ROCKS tab of the website. Dickey said an individual can sign up for one day when they plan to be at the trails or commit to a week or more if they wish.

The Seeley Creek Nordic Trail System is part of the Lolo National Forest and credit for recent trail improvements goes to the US Forest Service (USFS). Over the past two years, USFS has logged and graded the area both for fire safety and for skiers' safety. As the culmination of that work, USFS created a new trail map which, as SLNSC Vice President and Race Coordinator Lynn Carey said, "removes some of the confusion on how to get back to the trailhead."

The trail system consists of a number of interconnected loops of varying length and difficulty. Carey explained that as part of the logging and grading, the USFS created several new junctions between loops. He said, "They renumbered the junctions and the trails are color coordinated on the maps. So you can see exactly how to get back to the trailhead."

The USFS laminated large copies of the new map and placed one at each junction. Additional take-home copies are available in the yurt. The maps indicate distances and difficulty rating for segments between junctions and also recommended direction of travel.

The final improvement to the ski trails relates to grooming. With the help of a Recreation Trails Program (RTP) grant, the ski club was able to purchase a second seven-foot snowmobile sled capable of pulling a ginzugroomer. The ginzugroomer is the device that creates a corduroy-smooth surface for skate skiers. The new snowmobile replaces an older five-foot machine with 6,000 miles on it.

Carey said, "We have two seven-foot groomers now and we send them out at the same time. One has a track setter on it [to imprint grooves for classic skiers] and we can do the whole course in two-and-a-half hours."

With the old machine it took five to six hours to do the same amount of work and used twice as much gas. Carey added that not all trails are groomed every day, depending on snow conditions. He also said, in addition to the ginzugroomers, SLNSC has a roller and two draggers. These devices primarily are used early in the season to pack down the new snow and to fill in low spots to achieve a level surface.

SLNSC currently has six groomers who work in pairs. When the groomers are finished they have created a 14-foot wide trail which accommodates both skate skiers and classic skiers. Their final duty is to post a report on the SLNSC website. Before setting out for a few hours of skiing, skiers can access the website to see which trails have been groomed and get an accurate report on the ski conditions.

 

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