I knew there must be a logical explanation. This comment was submitted by Briony Williamson in reply to Hugh’s concerns about grooming:
Thanks for your feedback on the grooming at CNC today. I oversee the grooming program and can give you an update on why the trails past the meadow weren’t machine groomed last night. We normally have 2 grooming staff in on the weekends to groom trails for our users and unfortunately, 1 is currently unwell so we only have 1 team member on.
Our priority is maintaining the trails currently open and then focusing time between pushing out manmade snow and getting this amazing fresh snow groomed out. Last night’s groom wasn’t an easy one with heavy snow conditions so there wasn’t any additional time to get out on natural trails. Our team is working hard to get as much terrain open as possible for our users, bear with us it might take a few days. I am as keen as you are to get out and ski these with a machine groom on them!
I can also give an update that a colleague and I went out for 5 hours of roller packing today on Rundle to Meadowview, Banff from the meadow and Bow jct14-15. It’s tough going out there with over 50cm of fresh snow on Bow it took us 6 sled passes before we could even do a pass with the roller packers. We will be doing more work on these trails tomorrow and Tuesday.
We also try to pass on as much information as we can to our front desk team so they can keep our skiers up to date with where we are at. It’s exciting to see so much terrain almost ready to go this early on in the year.
Enjoy your holiday season and skiing at CNC!
Hi Briony, indeed there has been a lot of grumbling about the grooming and track setting after the big snowfall.
Everyone does, of course, appreciate your team’s efforts, and understands that someone was sick. However, many users including myself are confused by how trails are prioritized.
For example, today (Dec 26) nearly a week after the big dump, the obscure and seldom-used competition and training trails (which I love) such as Wolverine, Bruin, and Cougar have been groomed and track set yet the primary recreation trails such as Banff (beyond the warming hut area) and Meadow have not.
What is the rationale for prioritizing these seldom-used trails while not doing the most popular trails that I mentioned above?
A suggestion: prioritize the main recreation trails (e.g., Banff beyond the warming hut and Meadow) after fresh snow and you will keep 90% of your customers happy.
Hi Jacob,
I understand the confusion as to why these trails were groomed with a machine prior to the more popular ones. These trails were actually groomed on Monday though not today. It is indeed our priority to get the more popular natural trails groomed first however on this instance we were able to call on the help of our former trails supervisor to do some machine grooming for us whilst we were a man down. He came in during the day on Monday and focused on less populated trails hat were yet to be roller packed for the safety of skiers. It was a busy day out on trail on Monday being Christmas week so it wasn’t possible for him to groom Banff. Bow and Meadowview on this day.
We were able to get Bow groomed and trackset last night and Banff beyond the meadow groomed ready for a trackset tomorrow. With one team member on it’s a lot to try to get all of that done alongside the regular groom which was why they ran out of time to get Banff trackset. We should get Meadowview and Banff groomed and trackset tonight.
We are also trying our best to explain the reasons behind where we are at in the comments section on our trail report so you can better see why decisions have been made about grooming. The front desk team are also across this information so feel free to check in with them when you are here and have questions!
Happy skiing.
Hi Briony,
Dealing with 50cm of snow is a massive effort! Especially wet heavy snow. My hat goes off to you guys. That is a herculean task. You guys are awesome groomers!
Groomer Bill
Thanks Bill, I’ll pass your feedback onto our team!
Hi Briony – I skied Silvertip from the GreyWolf jct out to Meadow and back on Bow to the cut up to Banff trail. Great work taking out the four trees on Silvertip and I was the first skier on fresh packing – ditto on Bow packing. Hats off to Paul and Ryan.
Thanks Robin, will pass on the feedback to Paul and Ryan. There were certainly a lot of tree’s down out there that we have been trying to get to alongside grooming. Hope you enjoyed your ski!