We could spend a lot of money on signs. There are tons of them out on the market, even specialty Nordic trail signs; and they’re expensive. A few years ago I got it in my head that our signs should reflect the special place we ski. We came up with the hand-carved forest green and white signs for Montreal and now Uller will have it’s own distinctive hand made signs once the trail enters private land in the Town of Pence.

Yes, it takes time and effort; but a hand crafted board out there just shows folks that we take our trails personally. It’s not that big a deal; we just set aside sign work for days like we’ve been having: nasty blowing snow or sleet or a big deep freeze.

My back aches. My shoulders ache. My right thumb is numb. It’s been a long time since I muscled an Alpine over a narrow snake-trail through the hardwoods; but thanks to a couple of Rangers using old school techniques, there are now tracks on Uller from Weber Lake to Pence.

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…

Now I’ve set aside dreams of turning our area into a Hayward in February; but there are some things we can do. Montreal Trails needs a group of interested people to sit down at least once a year and think about what went on this year and what should go on next year and the next 5 years. We need a Board of Directors.

Tonight, for the 3rd year straight, the Pence Town Board voted to support our trails and skiing in general with a generous donation. They are believers in helping town residents and their guests get out and enjoy the winter weather we get. They are believers in the idea that during this year of isolation and quarantine, everyone needs a place to breath some fresh air, move around some and not have to pay a required fee for it.

Feels like normal Northern Iron County winter. Cold! Wind! New ‘cold flour’ powder on the trails. Slow skis for the first time this year. Clear skies! Wonderful sun.

We hope you were able to find your extra layers and get out either on skis or snowshoes and enjoy the calm our deep woods provides us when most everyone else has to deal with big windchill.

Some old-timer told me way back, ‘Yeah, the snow we get with a south wind is one thing. Once the wind turns out of the north, we’ll see what kind of muscle this storm has’. His words were sourced from years of dealing with some pretty powerful storms.

Today’s storm has had it’s classical rhythms. We woke up this morning with dense, fine grained snow falling with a south wind. Nice. We needed that kind of snow. Then, at about 10:30, the wind quietly switched and came at us out of the north. Now we’ll see what this storm has in store for us.

... and half your hay should be left on Groundhog’s Day.

I’ve always respected this heuristic. In its folksy way, it reminds me that after all we’ve done this season, wether it’s been skiing or working on trails, we’re only at the half way point.

There’s still the second half to come.

Quiet today. I don’t know if it was the light snow coming down or some other atmospheric phenomenon; but I didn’t hear the highway or the snowmobile trails. I did finally hear a raven, saw one deer and one grouse on my way in and out.

I was bent over when I was working, so all I saw was brush and all I heard was my loppers.

Guess who skied two days in a row? Ha, that snow is great, isn’t it? And this morning’s 15mm of fine-grained snow on top of all the re-groomed/re-tracked trail out there just made it all that much nicer and more forgiving. The only word I can think of is that my skis felt ‘sweet’ on the trail today.

Speaking of sweet, our new trail worker (who also set up and runs this webpage) really got to focus on setting ‘best line’ track on Saturday. It didn’t take him long to get the feel of it, because part of the sweetness of my two skis was skiing Montreal trails on a wonderful set of lines through all the curves and turns.

And, our luck this year, no new snow fell to clean things up like we’re used to.

Now what?

If there’s time, and the temperatures stay cold, 5 hours in the Gator at an average of 5 mph with all the teeth down on the drag will restructure the trails the way they should be at this time of year. We had time today. First trip around we renovated the ‘worst line’ or the stem lane on all curves. The second trip renovated the ‘best line’ and prepared the snow to set the track.

Uller grooming day today. No problem. Nice and cold. We didn’t even need the wipers during the first 2 hours. It was like we were working in a big city park. Sun was coming out...

Crunch.

Yes, we groom sometimes at -10º, we cut big trees that have blown down over the trail with chainsaws, we tear apart snowmobiles and Gator track modules (and try to find all the pieces later); but there are other Rangers at work too. They don’t get their videos or pictures up on the webpage or Facebook; but they have done wonderful work for us over the years.

If you want to up your game some, consider a lesson. There are some excellent ski coaches around. Get hold of a Ranger, we can point you in the right direction or even schedule a time to show you a few tips on classic ski technique... if we’re not grooming.

We actually got to ski on Saturday. Really nice. We’re home and cooking up some supper making plans for a Montreal Trail renovation op for Sunday (after we see that there might actually be some snow on Saturday night) when our texts and Facebook comments lit up with reports that snowmobiles had gotten on Uller from Smith’s Ck to Hoyt Rd.

Change of plans...

We can’t thank the people who support our efforts on the Montreal and Uller ski trails enough. They understand the importance of quality winter outdoor recreation opportunities, especially during these times of quarantine and uncertainty. Winter can be rough enough with limited daylight and sometimes brutal weather conditions. Having someplace to go where you can get away from the dirty, slippery streets and the noise from motorized traffic is huge this time of year. Thanks to these folks, we can just about depend that the trails are open, groomed, and tracked anytime we get the chance to get out there.

I had an opportunity to work on the Pence-Hoyt Uller connector with a new trail volunteer today. By the way, we stayed perfectly warm. He and his family have skied Uller many times over the past decade and he decided it was time to lend a hand. We took care of a brushy approach to Alder Ck that I’d been butting my head against for the past week. Two hours of work (well, I’d keep shutting the saw off and asking him about himself and where he was from and all...); done. We opened an interesting approach to a brush-mat crossing and packed the whole section down. And, I at least had a good time doing it. It was nice to have a new, interested user of the trails lend a hand. Nice, heck it was great!

It’s a short walk from my home to the Pence trails. I took my avalanche shovel and my medium Yoop-Scoop and by noon, I had the access to the trails, over the plowed berm nice and gradual.

Boring - something most people just don’t notice - but the trail accesses off of the streets of Montreal can be really challenging to older folks or young skiers without a lot of experience if they’re three and four feet high with hard, plowed snow. We’ve seen berms as high as five feet over the past 40 years.

The Wisconsin County Forest system is unique in the world. Nowhere else do county governments manage such high quality public timber. The Iron County Forest is the 3rd largest county forest in Wisconsin. It has the most northern hardwood acreage (hardwoods require more hands-on labor to manage). ICF not only supports back country skiing, it administers over a million dollars of timber sales annually, almost 300 miles of motorized trails, numerous campsites from walk-in sites to full hook-ups. The Forest maintains many boat launches, 50+ miles of county forest roads, and Saxon Harbor (a safe-haven harbor on Lake Superior).

…“ I turned East on the Main Stem and tracked down to Hoyt Rd. The east half of Uller and the K Spur are nasty-nice; but be warned. Those eastern tracks are ‘semi old-school “…