Clearing trails...

[Frankontour]

I was wondering if any of you was working on some trails or wood lines in the East, actually ? I don't want you to break secrets about the locations, so I will just ask it as a totally anonymous poll

Here, once again, we're working on the official network trails of Mt Shefford and Mt Alta. At Mt Shefford, it's a lot of new glades that will be developped this year, at Alta, a few ones too, but we project to work more on the official trails this year to make them perfect for the beginning of the season

I think it's a really nice summer activity... as it's so much helpful to pass the heats of summer, thinking at all the fresh pow we're going to find in these new spots

Here is a few official trails that we're clearing actually :

Mont Shefford : (pics taken in a new glade beside the trail #0)

Mont Alta : (pics taken in a new glade on the intermediate part of the mountain)

 

[riverc0il]

nice frank! how do you get yourself involved with "official" trail clearing? the ski area pay you to cut trail? man, i would volunteer in a second if a ski resort would pay me to clear some stashes! :lol: funny timing for the poll as i was just cleaning up some minor over growth the other day... less is more is my rule of thumb on cutting!

 

[Frankontour]

For Alta, it's enough simple, I know the owners for a few years now and we're quite involved with ZoneSki for their website + building some official trails, based on some existing off-pistes trails, which are everywhere on the mountain. In general, we're not paid in $$ but in ski tickets. At Alta, I have my season pass free for my work.

At Shefford, it's more Richard (still from ZoneSki) which know the owners and lead the glade development. At Shefford, they have more $$ to put on that so they're going with chain-saw and bigger stuff to build "conventionnal glades" They give 1 ski ticket for every 4h of job, which is still not that bad.

At Alta, we only cut the little trees, trying to cut more dead trees than healthy ones, so it's more some narrow glades, but they're incredibly cool to ski in winter. The one I'm working on right now is more an easy wide glade, but I've worked in the last 2-3 years on about a dozen of various super glades

It's fun to do both official trails and secret powder spots. It's not the same game, it's not the same fun, but both are a so nice way to pass the long eastern summer

 

[riverc0il]

very cool!! considering how much alta may benefit from some hand picked glades cut by the skiers, they should be offering more than a free lift ticket every fourth job! cut four trails and you may have just increased the area's tree terrain by 25% or what not! unless most of those jobs are just trimming and not actual cutting. still, not a bad idea to earn lift tickets in the summer! magic mountain offered free lift tickets a few years ago for helping trim their trails when they were over grown. haven't heard of another offer like that in new england since!

 

[salida]

i agree with river, less is more... My conventional wisdom says make sure the entrance to your stash look like an overgrown jungles of branches, frosted weeds, burms, and anything else that will stop people from entering...

 

[Lftgly]

Unfortunately, the new board requires a login to post, so I have to say that, for the record, I would have nothing to do with such nonsense, and I don't know anyone who would. However, I have been lucky enough while hiking deep in the forest to spot an elusive member of the "woodchuck" family, and captured the attached photo. As this species is considerably endangered by some government agencies, I can not reveal it's location. As Porter can appreciate, I did have to sneak through a thicket of blowdowns to approach the wily creature.

 

[riverc0il]

somewhere east of the Rockies...

:lol:
much more exciting than birding! nice shot.

 

[Frankontour]

Lol for the "East of the Rockies".

Me too, I have a few secret spots that I prefer to keep totally secret. For Alta, it's a bit different. The most important thing for now is to help them staying alive, and they need a lot of marketing for that... and new trails/glades attract a lot of skiers in the province (note : I'm not doing some marketing here... I'm sure almost no skier from New England would be attracted by this little mountain. On Zoneski, it's a bit different though)

For the lift tickets, yes, we don't go with chainsaw in the mountain, but only basic equipment and we're just touching little trees, brushes and branches... and somehow it's for us too that we do it, so I think lift tickets are a great way to "pay" the people for doing that

 

[20thSkier]

nice frank! how do you get yourself involved with "official" trail clearing? the ski area pay you to cut trail? man, i would volunteer in a second if a ski resort would pay me to clear some stashes! :lol: funny timing for the poll as i was just cleaning up some minor over growth the other day... less is more is my rule of thumb on cutting!

I've never done it, but apparently if you want to help out with summer trail maintenance at MRG, you can go to treeskier.com. They've got various mountain work days and give out free day passes (one pass per day of work, so it's not worth your time unless you enjoy it).

It's not quite what you're talking about, obviously -- iit's clearing brush and small trees from existing trails and maintaining tree lines, not creating new stashes.

 

[Mark Renson]

I've never done it, but apparently if you want to help out with summer trail maintenance at MRG, you can go to treeskier.com. They've got various mountain work days and give out free day passes (one pass per day of work, so it's not worth your time unless you enjoy it).

...and the announcement for this year's trail work was posted today and is here: http://www.treeskier.com/mrg/index.html

Sharpen the loppers and break out the bow saws.

 

[Eric312]

Yep

Last summer, I statrted a ''off-piste'' line between Boisé and Loup-Garou Canyon at La Reserve but I didn't have time to finish it. Last thursday, I went work in it and did a lot.

Also this summer, I do my own secret private trail. It's behind our cottage up North but the trail is not too long (Now, but it could be 3 times longer) . I'm planning to buy a chainsaw to finish it so it goes faster :wink:

 

[BigSpencer]

i agree with river, less is more... My conventional wisdom says make sure the entrance to your stash look like an overgrown jungles of branches, frosted weeds, burms, and anything else that will stop people from entering...

Colorado, NH, Waltham....Porter, you have no idea of what "deep woods" is. What you're looking at in these images is Canadian undergrowth...not even a percentage of what's being trimmed @MRG.

 

[awf170]

Yep

Last summer, I statrted a ''off-piste'' line between Boisé and Loup-Garou Canyon at La Reserve but I didn't have time to finish it. Last thursday, I went work in it and did a lot.

Did you start from the top and go down... cause it would pretty funny because people would go in and it would just end. I went into something at sunapee that did that, man bushwacking is not fun on skis

 

[salida]

i agree with river, less is more... My conventional wisdom says make sure the entrance to your stash look like an overgrown jungles of branches, frosted weeds, burms, and anything else that will stop people from entering...

Colorado, NH, Waltham....Porter, you have no idea of what "deep woods" is. What you're looking at in these images is Canadian undergrowth...not even a percentage of what's being trimmed @MRG.

if you say so

-porter

 

[Frankontour]

C'mon Eric, are you sure it's a good idea to announce your secret powder spot online ? lol

 

[Anthony]

Alta Quebec. If you have never been picture a miniature MRG. There is about 800? vertical with no snow making with one lift and no grooming (Frank, correct me if I am wrong). This makes it the best local place to go after a storm as it is never crowded. No boulevards that?s for sure.

 

[Frankontour]

Let's say more 600' high (unfortunately) and a few boulevards and a little bit of grooming... but still, basically, you're totally right

One more thing is that it has always the best conditions north of Montreal, because the absence of snowmaking makes the snow staying super soft and nice even way after the last storms. As it is in the snowbelt, you might not consider true the snowfalls they announce. They forget to count a lot of little snowfalls and they often stop to count in february or march, so there is often 3-5 more feet of snow than what they say. It's really a nice place, I would ski there all the time without getting bored.

When you're at the summit, it's always a tough choice for which super nice trail you're going to ski down. There is 20+ very interesting trails starting close to the summit... tough choice !

It's sad that it's just 600' vertical though, but generally after a few run of moguls T2B, you're completely exhausted anyway ! lol

 

[riverc0il]

frank, say no more! i am drooling over your description! =P~

 

[Frankontour]

no words, but if you want a little more description, you can see my video of early season 2004-05. Conditions were quite a bit crusty where nobody passed before (after the rain of christmas), but with "Radpat" skiing like a bulldozer just before us, we were OK :mrgreen:

There is just a dozen (or so) of great spots shown on the video, but still...

http://www.zoneski.com/galerie2/displayimage.php?p=618

Note that the music is back on this video...

I should mix up together all the nice film sequences we did last year at Alta to make a video that really show how this mountain rocks