Back to Houghton - Nordic Ski Race Grooming

Michigan Tech's Bombarider Plus-MP Snow Groomer

With the closure of Telemark Resort in Cable, Wisconsin last year, the January 2011 SuperTour cross country ski race lost its home. Michigan Tech stepped into the breach and offered to host the event. A national race series, the Supertour attracts many of the top tier of regional and collegiate skiers as well as some of the national development teams from the US and Canada.

Unfortunately, I was in Pennsylvania for the year and my partner at the ski trails, Jim Meese, was left with two groomers-in-training.

First Snowmobile Repair

Jim Repairs Second Snowmobile

After the Tiller Repair

Race grooming is complex and time critical, and requires experienced operators on both the big tiller equipped snow cat and on the tracksetter equipped snowmobile. The trainees were still hard at work learning the recreational grooming patterns and weren't ready yet for race grooming, so Michigan Tech offered to fly me back for the week so I could work the race. I jumped at the chance to head home to see old friends, do some trail grooming, work a race, and get some ski time on the great trails of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan's Lake Superior snow belt.

This year, equipment failures were an added challenge on top of course setup and grooming. One of our main work snowmobiles came back from the shop the day I arrived, supposedly cured of its failure to charge its battery. Not. More parts had to be ordered and we needed the sled working now for the races, so I mounted a deep cycle marine battery on the back, providing a day's worth of operation and easy charging in the shed at night.

Not to be outdone, the backup-backup sled, on load from the city of Houghton to groom the non-race trails, pulled into the trailhead pouring smoke from the engine. A pinhole in the mix-oil line was spraying directly onto the exhaust. It's a wonder it didn't burst into flames and melt into the snow. Jim astutely diagnosed the problem and had it repaired in no time once the muffler had cooled.

Plus-MP Groomer Cab

And between the Saturday and Sunday Races, the big machine suddenly lost the ability to raise, tilt, or center its tiller. It appeared to be a recurrence of a faulty connector on the hydraulic reverser valve control, but repairing this only eliminated some of the symptoms. Further perusal of the schematics and  inspection of the tiller frame revealed that the connector problem had been only the initiator of a cascade of failures. The snow cat is neigh 14  years old now, and its tiller centering sensor rod's flex joint had corroded over the years, becoming rigid. This in turn caused the sensor rod to flex with every pivot of the tiller frame. When the hydraulic control problem caused the frame to swing hard left, it was the last straw and snapped off the end of the fatigued rod. Not a part you'll find down at the hardware store on a Saturday night. Luckily, the rod was not hardened and we were able to drill a temporary hole in what remained. This allowed us to reconnect the sensor rod to the tiller frame and so allowed the tiller to recenter enough that the system could lift it. Phew. And just in time for the 5" of snow we got that night.

Waiting for Jim to Come Around Again

But the grooming itself went off without a hitch. Nothing broke during grooming, the snow let up just as we were finishing each morning, and we didn't forget anything. This event was especially complex to groom since we had so many races each day on so many courses. Each day we had two start areas, a finish, 3 different courses (1 km , 3 km and 5 km), and the wax test and warm-up areas to groom by 8 am (2 hours before race time).  We generally got up at 3 am, got the equipment on the trail by 3:30 am, and began with the wax test and warm-up. Jim ran the tiller and I followed with the snowmobile. 10 tracks on the wax test hill (he set 2 outer tracks with the wide-spaced tiller pans on 3 passes and I set 2 in between with the snowmobile pans on 1.2 m centers on the two outside passes), 4 through the warm-up loop, and 2 on course with best line (meaning that I set the tracks with the snowmobile only, following the shortest distance through the corners that the skiers will naturally ski).

The fun and the challenge of grooming is planning a pattern (since you can't go through an area with the equipment again once you've set track there), the teamwork between the tiller and sled operators, getting a consistent high quality surface with the tiller, and setting tracks that are straight on the straight segments, following best line on the corners, ending when a skier could not hold track through an approaching corner, and begining again at a location they will naturally find themselves after completing a turn.

Parallel Mass Start Tracks

Because we maintain very firm trails to hold up to heavy race traffic, it takes 2 passes with the tiller to sufficiently  loosen the snow for optimal track. We incorporate these two passes into our planning since with overlapping courses, there are points where the sled operator (me) has to wait for the tiller operator (Jim) to come around again and back into a cutoff or crossing. In addition to loosening, the tiller operator is responsible for leveling the course and stadium with the blade before race grooming. The snowmobile operator is responsible for setting the start tracks in the stadium once the tiller operator has leveled and loosened the entire stadium and spectator areas. It's a bit easier to set straight tracks with a snowmobile than the tiller once a reference track has been set, and the start track spacing of 1.5 m is different than the course and wax test spacing of 1.2 m. In straight areas with parallel tracks like a start zone, track straightness is especially obvious and important, so a reference track is set, then re-set with successive passes correcting any errors. The edge of the grooming for the first track can be used as a reference to align and guide the equipment on successive tracks (7 in this race).

Dragging the Sprint Timing Shed with Two Sleds

The day preceding a race, the course and stadium have to be groomed as they will be for the race to allow athlete inspection (and groomer practice). After each race, we remove any tracks from the course with the snowmobile and drag and re-set fences to prepare for the next day's course and grooming that night. So there's not a lot of sleep happening for the groomers (especially Jim the tiller operator) during races. 4 hours is common.

We also held a test race on our new sprint course at the Supertour, which necessitated a temporary timing building. What was the MTU football ticket booth in the fall got skis from Facilities in the winter. It took the big snow cat to get it unstuck and drag it from the trailhead, but we were able (just barely) to drag it from the stadium back to the trailhead with our two work sleds, where the tractor was able to take over and pull it into the parking area.

Grooming for races is aways a challenging, sleepless enterprise. I could do without the 3 am alarms, but to see the perfect corduroy and immaculate tracks in the purple light of dawn, to see the racers competing, enjoying the course, and to know that they appreciate your efforts is a fine reward.