12/17/2024
Today is Tuesday, December 17th, and yesterday we had over 40 degrees again, rain, sleet, and relatively no snow overnight. The picture below is from a good season, a few years ago, and its memories and good volunteers that keep us going during these challenging times. IRON COUNTY TRAILS ARE STILL CLOSED TO ALL VEHICLES.
Our friends to the East in Michigan are struggling with the melt-down also, and experiencing major water holes, especially in marsh areas.
In this part of the upper midwest we typically don't buy into the belief that we need cold before snow to establish our marsh trails. Although the over 32 degree temps bring their own problems, what we need is consistent moisture-rich snows to allow us to pack the marshes and build those snow bridges that make many of our trails. You see marshes never really freeze due to the organics that create heat. We consistently need to drag and drop snow on these crossings, as they melt from underneath. We use machines called Tucker Sno-Cats that have a very light footprint with 4 independent tracks, and these allow us to push snow (if we have any) in front of us to fill the voids before our tracks. This is a delicate process, and cannot be done as successfully with heavier equipment like our tractors.
So, we had our non-marsh trails ready after the first good snows, but we lost most of our hard work, like every club around us. We have nothing to bridge the marsh areas and the forecast doesn't look promising for a good period of time. It will take several inches of good snow to restart our system once again.
Thank you for your understanding, for your continued support, and please keep doing whatever you feel will help make it snow really hard!
