Is Uller Groomed?

Well, that’s a legitimate question. One never knows. There actually is a reason for this.

Over the last 40 years of trying to track Uller, we’ve come to realize that there are a special set of conditions that must be met to be successful.

Yes, today Uller is groomed and tracked from Weber Lk to Hoyt Rd, including the Krankkala Spur (which for the 1st time this year, didn’t have snowmobile tracks on it). We met a couple at the Weber Lk parking lot as we finished up and put away equipment. The guy (whom I’m thinking was a civil engineer or an efficiency expert) was totally excited to pull up to Uller and have brand new fresh tracks to ski. For future reference, and so he could show up again at precisely the right time, he asked me what the grooming schedule was.

Ah, yeah, grooming schedule... Well, I told him what I’ve been telling people for the last four decades: ‘the conditions on Uller at any given time are an act of God’.

These are the conditions that must be met to get a decent set of tracks up on the Penokee Range:

  • Uller can be; but shouldn’t be groomed alone, so we need to find at least two people and coordinate their schedules.

  • Uller requires the most powerful equipment we own. That equipment should be in its best working order. Breaking down on Uller has never been any fun.

  • There should be at least 10cm of new snow on the old tracks, otherwise, it’s just not worth it.

  • We never spend less than 4 hours grinding away on Uller. There have been trips that have taken twice as long. A significant block of time must be set aside.

  • The weather conditions should be better than brutal; but a heated Gator cab has helped us get out there when we couldn’t using snowmobiles.

When we meet those above criteria, we can usually get some decent tracks on Uller. Some trips we can mold Olympic quality tracks, like we did today. The trail is unbelievable; best conditions we’ve had all year. Everything came together. Even still, the Penokees took their toll; the orange painted person working on the burned-out belt is the Iron County Forestry Department forester who drove today’s operation. He’s an expert in best line tracking and has to be prepared to disassemble and reassemble a clutch and belt on the trail (it warmed up to -8º by then, from -27º when we started).

There will never be a grooming schedule on Uller. But skiers can rest assured that, if there’s 4 inches of new snow on the Range, the Rangers and Iron County Forest are frantically trying to get the conditionals under control to get out there and set some tracks.

Ski it if you can. We don’t get a lot of trail conditions like this every year. Z


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