I’m humbled by what I saw this weekend. It started out on Thursday night with the Ranger’s 47th Annual Meeting. Most of the previous meetings had been no more than a couple of guys calling each other and making sure we had some money in the bank and that the equipment was operational. This year saw more than a dozen people show up around a camp fire and elect 4 new board members, retain the Chief of Trails and the Treasurer. They discussed plans for this coming summer (get ready you young folks, there’s going to be some action out on the trails!) and things we need to do for next winter. All of us old, crotchety Rangers are pumped at the level of energy we saw…

Remember, there are others out there.

There are other ski clubs working, cutting brush, draining water, packing snow, grooming corduroy, setting tracks, and not gaining a profit. There are others who just know that supporting those types of organizations and knowing their needs is the thing to do. They understand that it's good, fundamentally good for people to get outside, into the woods and away from the noise, hustle and business of today's everyday life. The Gogebic Range Health Foundation is one of those organizations. The Foundation is local. It's mission is to help outfits like the Rangers get the things they need and do the work that needs to be done so that people have a place to get away from that which wears us down.

It was a little nasty out there while I put tools together and found my old first aid kit.

It wasn’t raining or sleeting though, and the wind hadn’t turned off the lake yet, so at 10:00, seven of us got out on the west end of the Pence Loop and cut 25 ironwood saplings and peeled them down for trail markers.

There were no bugs. There was no wind, rain or sleet.

Take a look at the pics, while peeling knobby ironwood, there were plenty of smiles out there. It sure is much more fun peeling with this group than alone, with the sounds in my head.

They’re the ones patrolling with us in the fall and spring while we look for deadfall and other obstacles. Yeah, they roll in some of the funkiest things and have been porkied and skunked out there; but most of our best patrols have been with these four-pawed-drive companions.

Researchers say our dogs are only loaned to us for a decade or so by our proto-lithic ancestors. Those ancestors were the ones who were allowed to create the miracle of our inter-genus relationship. I still can’t comprehend how it could have ever happened.

We got started cutting stakes last weekend. We will go out again on Saturday, April 10th at 10 AM. We will cut and peel stakes until noon (that’s about as much peeling one can do before things get a little boring and the peeling gets a little sketchy. We will meet at 301 Birch St and proceed out onto a trail. A few of us will cut and skid the stakes to a central peeling location where we’ll all peel for a couple of hours. All you need is trail work clothes, decent shoes, and a stout-sharp knife. Bring some water. We’ll stay far enough apart and see how many stakes we can get peeled (we need like a good hundred).

Last night’s Journal made it sound like that was pretty much it; but I forgot a whole group of people that give us permission to ski freely across their property. Without these folks (most of whom are not skiers) the Montreal Ski Trails would simply not exist. Uller would permanently stop at the Hoyt Rd East terminus. No tracks to Pence.

We, as the Rangers respect our landowners. There are no trail ops the weeks leading up to and including deer season. We take down signs that don’t need to be on their property after winter. If they sell some timber, we ski around them for a while. What they say goes on their land.

As chief of trails, I spent many years working on trails alone.  I dealt with a spring-pole to the teeth, an Alpine rolling over on top of me on the Alder Ck bridge, a burnt brain box at the headwaters of Boomer Ck (and a long ski out), uncountable Alpine and Gator ‘refusals’ and wind/snow falls that caught me without a chainsaw that had to be cut with a hand saw and a camper’s axe.  But there were many other people, now that I think of them, that were out there with me on and off.  Carol of course and Mark (RIP) and Margie.  Then there was Karl B (who’s also, sadly gone) and his brother Tim who set up and re-set Alpines and then taught me how to make them dance.

For the time being, we’ll be down in the sign shop, listening to the cursed sump-pump. It’s time to catch up on some home projects.

To prevent any post-season depression, we’re starting to plan the summer/fall projects. For the first time in our history, we’ve got plenty of financial support to move forward with two bridges, two portals, a (big) pile of dirt to move and many, many signs to carve and/or paint. We take this chance to thank everyone who contributed revenue this year; especially Gogebic Range Health Foundation, Iron County Forestry Department, and a couple of anonymous private citizens. Keep checking in, we’ll get a (21st century) graphic up that will show what we’re going to do and when. We think it will help people who want to help make plans to join us.

Here’s to all of the inspiring women in our community, without whom our trails and little corner of the world wouldn’t exist. Thank you.

Rebecca, Amy, Maleah, Joyce, Ciara, Kari, Kelly, Jackie, Mackenzie, Andrea, Margie, Mary, Leann, Mary B., and Carol - particular accolades go out to you and your continued dedication to the trails. It will never go unnoticed or under-appreciated.

Having the Historic Montreal Ski Trails directly in your backyard is pretty amazing but it also spoils you. It’s just so dang convenient to head out the door, strap on your equipment and hit the trails...right from your front yard. That convenience is great but it also keeps me from exploring other trail systems in our community.

I do try to make it a point to hit the Uller Trails at least once a season though.

The old trail chief got out today after we ground up Montreal with the 6’ drag. It was nice to pull out the skate boots and the old skate skis and use a few different muscles. My four footed companion could feel the spring-like air too; she pulled me almost a half a kilometer before I could get my pole straps on.

We were fast in the shade and pretty slow in the sun. That’s spring skiing. Fine grained corn snow developing into coarse grain corn. Although I prefer and enjoy mid winter skiing, a good day of spring skiing is something I remember until late in the summer.

We hope you were able to get out today. March sun and a good base is good for your soul. Ski Freely. Z

So, Uller has transitioned to ‘back-country’ status for the foreseeable future.  There will be no tracks.  The base is bomb-proof until we get our third day in the 50º’s; but skiers will be making their own tracks or following other ski-tracks.  Of course, the trail is a wonderful, 2.5m wide snowshoer’s dream at this time.

There are options: if we get a week or so of cold, with or without new snow, we might find the temperature window to go out and flat groom (no tracks). If that happens, a very rare and exciting situation occurs. Uller could be skied freestyle!  It’s only happened a few times over the last 5 decades; but it’s a transcendental experience.

Once the snow piles up in our woods and we finally get all the trails packed, groomed and set, strange things happen out there.

It seems like things are pretty normal and stable until there’s around 18” of snow on the ground.  At 18” of snowpack, we’ve only got about 6” of packed base on the trail, so there is a 12” difference in height from the trail to the top of the snow column.  That’s when things begin to happen.  

Now, we’ve got to think in slow motion while we talk about these mid-winter occurrences, these actions take days, sometimes weeks to develop and reveal themselves.  They happen every year, even on a low-snow year like the one we’ve had.  They’re awesome, frustrating and always a certain kind of magic. 

Driving in it, walking, shoveling it, brushing it off your windshield, hood, snow can be a real bother; it gets in the way.  It gets you soaked if you stay out in it long enough.

But there’s another side to snow, isn’t there?  It also covers the stark drearyness of late fall.  It provides a wonderful backdrop for holiday lights.  If you have the proper base on your runners, you somehow can glide on it.

Snow is a miracle.  

Hundreds of people packing up and coming out to walk a 3 kilometer trail lit up by candles, waiting and sometimes being awarded with a moon glow. Hot chocolate. Two year olds in sleds going the whole route.

It was a perfect night. No wind to chill folks and blow out luminaries. A hard trail one could walk on without snowshoes.

The work the people of NICER did to pull off a crowd event in the middle of the pandemic can’t be minimized. It was tremendous. I hope you can find the places where pictures of the Hygge Hike event are posted. I can’t describe, using my best adjectives what I was able to see on the Montreal Trails tonight.

Forget about the ski trails for a minute.

I’m not going to talk about snow, brush, gators, belts, idlers or stem lanes.

I’m going to talk about community and the people who surround Montreal and Uller Trails.

Yesterday we got a call from the mother of one of the young women I had the privilege to coach a few years ago. After getting an update on where she was and what she was studying, her mother told CC and I to be at the Memorial Building the next day for our first Covid inoculation. And don’t be too early.

Spring tracks? Felt like it today. Uller tracking went very well, partly because it was 54º warmer than it was the last time we tracked! Nice tracks, good stem lanes; but with the sun gaining strength, things will change almost daily.

I would grab my edged skis for an Uller trip these next few days and through the weekend; but that’s just me.

Perhaps, when there is some extra time, we’ll even get around to placing some signs out at these important or interesting sites. Places like ‘Ice Falls Bridge’, ‘the T’, ‘Midway Cutoff’, ‘The Hall of the Mountain King’, ‘NIxon Crossing’, ‘Big Bend’, ‘Fauerbach’s Climb’, ‘Mike Fauerbach Pause’, ‘rest creek’, ‘lunch creek’, ‘High Point’, ‘Finn Bridge’, ‘6oaks’, ‘the Switchback’, ‘the Pits’, ‘Troll Crossing’, ‘Porcupine Junction’, ‘Upper and Lower Deer Trail’, ‘Macht Grade’. Thank goodness we re-routed around ‘The Wall’ and the ‘Wall Spring’ that we never could conquer. Each location means something to those of us who find themselves out there in weather that can turn ugly, or with equipment that finds a way to break down.

We don’t get a lot of days like this one.

We hope you got out. We hope you got some serious February sun on your cheekbones. We hope you got a ton of vitamin D to combat what ails us. We hope you breathed some of this air today.

But then some signs are more distinctive then others...

Many thanks to our mysterious sign-carving benefactor; we’ll sure enjoy them. Keep your eyes out on the Pence Loop for these new additions.

Get out now, the big freeze is over. The sun gets serious in February.

Ski Freely, Z