Hunkered Down

It's a good thing the weather's been frightful because I've been cleaning up after my lost wallet all day! It's 2AM now, and I just made a nightcap...

Still Life With Piña Colada

I never realized how many monthly bills I've automated! I think an encrypted document with everything in one place is in order, with a copy on CD stored in the safety deposit box!

I talked with one helpful Customer Service agent in Ohio, and they've had an unseasonably mild winter too...

My day began  at 10AM when Mrs Landlord called. She said she was down with a chest cold and taking a sick day, that Mr Landlord was on the road, and not to worry about taking out the garbage and recycling...she'd made arrangements for a special pickup Friday!

I couldn't have agreed more! The wind blew like crazy all night (It's still blowing now) The DaveCave's front porch is still clear of snow, but up in front of the garage, copious drifts have accumulated.

I told Mrs Landlord that I'd blow the berm as soon as the plows came by. The sooner you get on a fresh berm the better.

I made a pot of French Roast and did the dishes. Looking out the kitchen window, I could see the neighbors' driveway was still berm-free. An hour or so later I clicked on Where Is My Snowplow and saw that there was a plow getting close to the neighborhood.

It was now noon newstime...I tuned in Channel 13 for the Blue Canyon Live Remotes and the forecast...about 15 minutes in I heard the plow lumbering up the street. I was already in long pants with shoes and socks on. I wanted to wait until KCRA3's 12:40 weather report before I suited up and hit the driveway/berm project. At 12:30 the plow made it's downhill pass, I watched it go by while warming up my coffee. I felt a pang of guilt when I sat back down and waited for the KCRA3 weathercast.

While watching the radar images the plow ran up the hill again...that's a lot of snow! Pulling on my slicker and putting in my ear plugs, I heard the plow make it's second downhill pass...that's gonna be some berm, I thought...

The front stairs were almost scoured of snow as the wind was blowing a steady 15-20. The drifts between the cars in the driveway were two feet at the garage door giving way to 18" or so out at the berm. This was the highly prized Champagne Powder...Utah's Finest, so to speak...

I blew my way out of the garage and through the berm...not much resistance...perfect timing! I blew the berm in front of my car first...It's the downhill direction...The wind wasn't making this easy...Five passes, and I turned around and began blowing the berm across the street.

The wind was definitely on my team now...I blew the berm past Mrs Landlord's Subaru and Mr Landlord's Pickup. The deep snow and the stately speed of the plow made the berm very manageable. I left a solid pass in front of our cars to help catch the next berm.

Sometime around 6PM I went down for a "nap"...I awoke at 8:30...I may have missed the plows, but hey...It'll wait till morning! This snow is so dry, even if the berm has 12 hours of set-up time it'll be a piece of cake to blow!

Well, the 3:09 AM AFD says there's more snow on the way, and that the big winds will blow again between 5AM and 10AM Winter Storm Warnings are up...looks like the wind will be on my team again when I blow the driveway berm!

Good night, thanks for reading!

Friday Night Lights

Friday night's shift started slow, but finished on higher notes.

The storm came in with much higher snow levels than we'd like. On my way into work, the torrential rain made driving tricky...so much rain became standing water because the crown of the roads couldn't drain the rain as fast as it fell. Had it been snow, it would have been 6+ inches/hour!

Snow levels lowered to pass level at 11:30PM after raining all day. It was way ugly...

Swing shift was grateful to finish their shifts, and advised we "take our time getting out there" we happily agreed...time to let the mountain "drain"...

We'd tallied around six inches of snow by 4AM. More hours of drain time were needed, but you can't make time...

In 30 years on my mountain, I've never seen more puddles, sinks and water running over the piste...we attacked it head-on...digging ditches...

Every "water feature" needed help draining. Blade a trench to help the water drain from the piste. Wherever possible we enlisted the lift operators to "do the finish work" to speed the drainage.

The bunny hill complex was our biggest problem...

Now I've seen plenty of rain on My Mountain over the years, but this is the first time I've seen so much rain on top of such a slim "base". The bunny hill has several "flats" that all became ponds or lakes.The pack is so thin, you can't "trench" it to help it drain, lest you tear up the erosion-control stuff...water bars and berms mostly. So we wait...I'm guessing the bunny complex didn't open at all Saturday.

Once we'd drained as much as time would allow, we pasted everything back together, and packed up.

Five modern groomers working as a pack is an awesome thing to behold, easily leaving 60-70 feet of corduroy in it's wake. The pack re-rolled half the open trails in a jiffy. The top of the mountain opened an hour late...but it opened with fresh corduroy from top to bottom.

After the soggy start, the groomers were treated to a half an hour on hero snow...the first of the season. Tonight's gonna ROCK!

The Vision Thing Again

The "Salvation Storm" arrived right at midnight Saturday morning. After a month of dry weather and firm packed conditions, it was like Christmas Morning! It did not disappoint! An honest inch an hour until 6AM...I know I watched it pile up around the 24 Hour Snow Stake.

I swung by the stake for my first look at 0200...2 inches. Back at 0400, I checked to see 4 inches and phoned the Ski Patrol Boss with the news. This is when he makes the Go-No Go decision on avalanche control for the day. Six inches or more is an automatic Go. When there's 4 inches and it's still pounding with big winds up top, it's a discretionary Go.

There were times when there was total white-out conditions down lower too. With the crescent moon not rising until after 4AM seeing was problematic. I spread the crew out so each groomer would have total control of his lighting. I put "The Pack" together an hour before first light, so we could really kick it down the "home stretch".

Jeweler caught the pack in action w/ his iPhone

Everyone flat out enjoyed themselves...our first honest 10 hour shift in a month. It was better than Christmas...smiles all over the hill. Even though I deployed sunglasses at 0900, we still tallied 10 inches when all was said and done.

The Vision Thing
"Recognizing Tunnel Vision" was my take-away theme for the night. Eskimo had another over-caffeinated planning cyclone. I told him to "Free your mind" and go with the flow a little more. What we want to do and how we do it are always subject to Mother Nature's whims. Our mission is always to "do the most with the least". In this instance it means leaving the obvious re-rolls 'till last. If you only groom once before the lifts turn, you can make more acres of corduroy overall, and keep up with the digging. "I know you want to do the Bunny Hills right out of the blocks "to get it over with" but we'll just be back redoing it again in the morning...so lets go have some fun, do the secondaries, and we'll get the bunny hill, one time, just before opening."

I had my tunnel vision moment too...

My tractor is the oldest, frontline groomer in the fleet. She turned the hour meter over to 8200 hours this week. Old but unbended, she's still running like a thoroughbred. There's been one little problem that's dropped her score from 100 to 95 this season.

She's been making a tiny berm on the right hand side all season. Not awful, but not perfect. More berm going downhill than up, I've been coping by working solo and altering my circuits so I finish with an uphill pass, and coming off the hill with a Skier's Right Pass...my compensation plan was working fine until storm nights returned.

I repeatedly eyeballed the problem out on the hill and found a spacer at the top of the "Triangle Flap" or "End Flap" of the tiller to be half as tall as specified. I wrote the thing up several times, over the month, and finally took the opportunity of the big snow night to get the Graveyard Wrench to affect repairs.

I backed the BR350 into the middle bay of the vehicle shop, jumped out and kibitzed with the Wrench...In the bright lights of the shop, with the tiller up at eye level, I was showing the Wrench the Mickey Mouse Spacer problem when we saw the underlying problem.

The whole inner "side dam" assembly was MIA...Wrench surmised that it never was replaced during summer service. Wrench consulted the Parts Program...seven part numbers for the whole shebang! The side dam keeps the snow inside the tiller box, where it's metered out in a controlled manner, preventing berm formation in the first place.

The parts? Not in stock. I rolled out of the shop, refueled, and went back to my Left-Handed grooming world. I mulled over my mistake...I saw what I'd seen in the past on these tillers, and stopped searching...call it what it is wishful thinking (or seeing)...more tunnel vision.

There's a Grooming 101 lesson here...I'm not the only pilot of this snowcat...each operator's eyes have missed the missing side dam assembly on every pre-flight walk-around. The BR350's are so robust, so reliable that the natural human tendency to laziness shrinks the scope of the pre-flight check-out...shame on us all.

I understand it...I'm guilty...I wanna get out on the hill more than I want to go over the tractor with a fine toothed comb...in the dark...with a Mini Maglite. I got away with it this time. Granted, a berm isn't a blown motor or broken stinger, but one night a weak walk-around could result in big trouble.

Lesson learned.

Encore!

Winter returned alright! While I was blowing my driveway before I left for work, it didn't snow a bit. When I pulled into the parking lot at work, there was about five inches on the ground. When I pulled out of the lot this morning, there was at least fifteen inches!

Pretty nice snow, and plenty of it...recipe for a tasty night's work. I was in no mood for hassles, so I ran the Pack. I broke trail and the rookies followed along behind. The snow was as deep as two feet almost everywhere because the Mountain only opened one lift Tuesday. The winds ranged from near 50MPH at the Base to 100+ MPH up top. Patrol's anemometer recorded a 130MPH gust in the afternoon!

Running the Pack was just the thing...it became a "Teachable Moment" in today's vernacular. As we rolled hither and yon, I narrated over the 2-way, coached the guys to make just a little more with each pass, and explained my deep, dry snow, berm position.

I've turned these guys into Perfectionists. When it's as deep and dry as last night, they've got to unlearn a few things in order to increase production. I told them: "Tonight, I'll tolerate 6X6 Berms" I explained that six inch high, six inch wide berms wouldn't be dangerous, wouldn't set up, and would let us get the Work Orders done. A lot of the list got groomed three times!

With the Mountain closed, Swing Shift came in early and did a lot of digging before grooming a bunch of trails. I ran the Pack until 0400, when I launched them to their own devices, so I could start detailing the ramps, roads and mazes, and dig out the lift terminals again. Visibility had been improving all night, so I didn't worry that the guys would get lost and make more work for us. With so much snow on hand, adjustments had to be made to our usual routine. Working alone now I did a few trails "backwards" to control the berms.

As the night wore on, the snow fell and got ever dryer, so dry that it could barely find the ground. Snow levels dropped as low as 2000ft. Everything flowed nicely, our only mechanical was a windshield wiper failure on my old favorite tractor...passenger side, so the operator was able to run with it fine. I got a nice "power nap" for Lunch Break, and when the Sun rose, I was well into the Snow Day routine.

Back at the shop by 0900, Jeweler, one of the guys worried that we didn't get enough done. I laughed and said we did fine...we did tons considering the two feet of fluff we had to work with.

Warming up the pickup, I thought about Jeweler worrying all morning...I'd better dole out some kudos tonight, and council a little more about the Big Picture! For me, last night wasn't ecstatic, but it was satisfying...you can get jaded in a hurry when Champagne Powder rules the roost in Springtime...I'd better not let it go to my head.

I've Still Got It

No, not the flu!

Last night I enjoyed the trifecta. Finally a whole shift in my favorite BR350!
New Seat-check...
New Heater Blower-check...
Stereo Antenna Works-check!

I forgot my iPod, and the pack was hard enough that CD's would skip every time you'd get your groove on, so an evening of jazz on the local NPR station was just the ticket.

The latest wave of snow gave forecasters fits and found it's way into the High Sierra somewhere to the South of my Mountain. Swing Shift did yeoman's work, given the number of "Special Projects" that were front-loaded into the Work Orders. Even with all the Non-Grooming stuff on their list, they got plenty of grooming done due to the Hero Snow, and everyone was smiling and laughing at Shift Change.

I spent a half an hour doing my own "Special Project" before getting back on my latest favorite trail project.

Yesterday's snow was just deep enough that this trail gave up a long gone thrill...Freefall! This is the trail right under a chairlift, with lift towers, a dearth of trees, and a building complicating winch grooming. We've rarely groomed this trail over the last three seasons due to the low snow conditions, because there's a gnarly rock outcropping just downhill from the lift tower...right where you lose traction in soft snow!

Tuesday night, I groomed right up this little steep...with a roll of snow in my blade and running Down Pressure...right up the three Skier's Right Passes where the freefall starts!

Back in the days before Winch Technology finally matured, we free groomed everything, and on snow nights and a day or two after, groomers would be sliding down trails all night! Not the best results, but Boy! What fun we had! Even at HyperSpace speeds, there are skills that help the operators make good corduroy with the smallest berms left behind.

Today with almost half of our shifts running winch cats, these thrills are almost verboten. On my little favorite trail of the week, there's three passes that have a little spot- two machine lengths long that offer this experience today. You get a slide of 6-8 machine lengths before the compression at the bottom of the steep slows you down to traction speed again.

How does an experienced groomer pull off a slide without making things worse? It's all a matter of timing.

As you groom your way down to the steep spot where you expect to loose it and slide the cat, you dial back your speed to full slow ahead. You're clicking the sticks in and out of neutral detent, and tapping in extra Up Pressure to catch your spillage. The trick is to slide the sticks full forward just as the slide begins...while simultaneously losing the Up Pressure. As you rocket down the trail, the newly weighted tiller compacts the snow enough to keep the spillage from making too much berm. While you're at it, you need to keep the tractor on the pass, and inline with the adjacent passes! When you get back to controlled flight, you tap the Up Pressure back in, and go about your business.

Done right, this is one of the most satisfying things groomers do. A little off on the timing, and you'll have to let it set up for an hour or two, and come back and do it all over again. The second time around, you're usually in deeper when the slide starts, so you aren't carrying as much snow in the tiller box, so chances are better that you'll win.

The A-Team is in on swing tonight, so I'm looking forward to another shot at those three magic passes!

It's been too long! Last night I didn't nail it until my third pass...then perfection!

Grooming 101.6

Still Working With Gravity
Yesterday's lesson on Gravity and Berm Control didn't have anything to say about controlling Berms when the snow starts getting seriously deep. What happens when the snow is soft, dry, and deeper than the Snowcat's tracks?

Berms happen, that's what! When there's more snow than Tillers can chew, Modern Grooming Equipment can't do the job in a single pass. Today's Grooming Machines do much better than their fore-bearers, but even the most skilled groomer in the latest machine can't break the laws of physics. Mother nature bats last, and sometimes she goes on a hitting streak that would make Joltin' Joe DiMaggio envious.

When the snow gets to the topside of the machine's tracks, there's no alternative to Double Passing, to get the desired surface. Production goes out the window, Back up Plans take effect and the hunkering down begins. Old Hands know that there's a long hard slog ahead, and take steps to endure.

There's much satisfaction to be extracted from Big Storm Periods, provided you mete out your energy over the duration of the storm. It's not just up on the Mountain where deep snow means harder work...and more of it! Getting back and forth to work gets more difficult, vehicles need shoveled off, digging out and de-icing. All these extra chores eat the minutes until they become hours, and everything becomes slower as the snow deepens.

Coping Skills
Enduring the increased workload means adjusting your output of energy, and eliminating wasteful action in favor of tried and true methods to soldier through.

Step One: Stop hurrying! There's an old saying about the "hurrier I go, the behinder I get" or some such, just set a steady, sustainable pace, and grind it out.

I've learned to manage my excitement over my years on the Mountain, because hard won experience has taught me that more than likely, I'll be in my cat come 2PM, rather than hitting the sack back at the DaveCave. So, you keep a lid on your emotions, try and help everyone you work with to cope nicely so they too can stay in the game over the long haul.

Yes, the best laid plans of mice and men...when the snow gets deep, why do so many otherwise sane, intelligent people start to lose IQ Points by the bushel? Unfortunately, in all my years up in the High Sierra, I've never been able to put my finger on this weird behavior quirk.

You learn to tune out the frenzy, but stay vigilant, because you don't want to let anyone around you get stupid enough to hurt themselves or others. It's always during these extended siege periods that, people find ways to injure themselves or others. The Fire Departments and all our Emergency Responders already have their hands full, so we don't want to get on their waiting list! Sadly, if a wide-eyed Flatlander is going to tangle with a Road Grader on the Highway, or a Snowblower in a driveway, it'll be during a busy Storm Siege.

Mountain Sanctuary
Step Two: When you get away from the Base Areas and the IQ Altered, there is peace up on the Hill. Double Passing takes more than twice as long as grooming less snow in a single pass, but it is no less satisfying...especially if you've just escaped the circus below! Again, you tune up your Balancing Act.

When it's this deep, there are a couple of ways to proceed, depending on weather you're working solo, or working in a Pack. When I'm working by myself, I'll make as big a first pass as I dare, and groom my trail as wide as time allows, then go back to the beginning, and re-groom the whole shebang. A little "set-up time" helps things turn out better when you go back an "chase" those big berms.

If I'm leading a pack, we'll make fat passes going downhill, and gently chase the berms on our way back uphill. If the trail doesn't set up enough to do that, I move the pack to the next trail for it's first passes, and then return to chase the berms on the first trail...repeat as necessary, your acreage may vary...

When the guests hit the slopes, my crew leave the mountain to them. Most of the crew calls it a day, the Old Hands take a break, regroup and refuel, and head out for more Storm Fighting.

We stay off the Mountain during the day, but there are tons of places around the mountain where Groomers can help lighten the load of the snow that's piling ever deeper. Lots of plowing and pushing eat up the hours...this is where a good stereo and mp3 players come in handy. These gadgets help the time pass while keeping boredom at bay. Before you know it, it's afternoon and the body starts making it's needs known. Bedtime beckons, and you can veto the drive to rest for a few days, but as with all things worth doing, eventually you must succumb to nature and call it a shift.

The sleep you get after this kind of shift is deep, but the alarm clock goes off as soon as your head hits the pillow. Time to get up and do it all over again. We do this for days on end when the storm door is wide open…believe me, all the Old Hands live for this stuff!

Hard Work…Good Times.

Grooming 101.5

Making Heroes
OK, just how do heroes get it done? Is it just the Hero Snow that makes even dilettantes look good? If only it was so easy!

No, heroes must earn their status on the mountain. Anyone who can walk a straight line can learn to make a nice pass in a modern groomer, but a Groomer must have skills beyond walking and chewing gum at the same time! Multi-tasking was the "Word of the Year", what? More than a Decade ago? At least...

Like anything worth doing, Grooming a Ski Hill is a balancing act. Good operators learn which Rules can be bent, and when. They also know which Rules must be obeyed Always.

There's two sets of Groomer's Rules. On set for grooming uphill, and the other set for making corduroy going downslope. Gravity is a big player on Ski Hills. Skiing and Snowboarding aren't known as Gravity Sports for nothing!

Gravity supplies the horsepower that Sliders enjoy on any Ski Hill. Groomers, equipped with plenty of horsepower, use Gravity to help make the most Corduroy, with the least muss and fuss.

The most desirable Skiruns are paved with perfect corduroy from wall to wall, without any pesky berms to degrade the dance-floor-flat surface.

What are berms? Berms are spills, plain and simple. Snow spilled out of the reach of the Tiller's combs. The combs make the corduroy from the fresh packed and tilled snow. It's really easy to make berms, even with a "State of the Art" modern Groomer...go a little too fast downhill in soft snow, and lots of fresh-tilled snow will fall from the Tiller's Box, and spill beyond the reach of the combs.

The deeper the freshly fallen snow, the more likely it is berms will form. Here's the balancing act in all it's little glory. Going uphill, the tiller's box catches almost everything in it's way. Tilling it and feeding it under the weighted combs, leaving the dance floor corduroy. Crafty operators make the absolutely widest pass possible going uphill, without spilling a berm. At the top of the run, the operators adjust everything from the width of their new downhill pass, the depth of cut of the tiller, their speed over the snow, to the amount of Up-Pressure on their Tiller, and even adjust the speed of the tiller's Cutter Bar. All in order to keep from spilling any berm. To attain maximum productivity, every parameter of the cat's implements, need adjustment every pass, every time.

So, when the snow is soft or deep, the size of the pass depends on careful monitoring of, and reacting to ever changing conditions. The steeper the trail, the more gravity works against the Groomer, and the smaller each downhill pass becomes. Conversely, steepness helps widen the uphill pass...up to a point.

Blade basics
What about that big blade on the front of the cat? It's part of the Groomer's Toolbox, and in soft or deep conditions the blade helps the operator get another 10-20% out of each pass! Swinging the blade so the snow will flow across the face of the blade, away from the finished pass, and skimming just the right amount of snow off the pass he's working, allows the groomer to increase his speed, while controlling any potential berm production.

On hard packed nights, the blade is always in the snow, scraping the top few inches of the flatter surfaces, and keeping a "roll" of snow in the blade which supplies plenty of fresh, soft material for the tiller to chew and lay out for maximum corduroy production. Here again, the skilled operator takes all he can get from the snowpack, balancing depth of the blade's cut with the fullness of the pile rolling in (but not spilling from) his blade...all while keeping an eagle eye on his mirrors to monitor the spill from the tiller. Tailoring his speed to balance production vs quality is part of the game always, too.

On paper, it seems like a very busy, scattered endeavor, but in practice it can become a dance almost. When you're hittin' it right, it becomes a swirling ballet of sense and reaction, parry and thrust, risk and reward. It's pretty hard to keep the grin off your face when it's going like that. The acres and hours fly by, and barring breakdowns, extra runs can be groomed...above and beyond the Work Orders.

What about using that blade to mow down moguls, or to repair Race Ruts, you ask?

That’s a whole different ball game, and it deserves it’s own section. When the snow gets deeper, and skiers carve it into bumps, then I’ll do a seminar on Bump Cutting. There’s still lots to learn about soft, deep fresh snow! Stay tuned.