Making sure your winter trails are clear and accessible is an important part of Snow Grooming. Keeping your trails clean starts in the summertime. When you’re out on your trails you want to make sure there are no large rocks, sticks, stumps, or trees in the way. This allows for nice smooth snow grooming in the wintertime. It also helps with making sure your snow is well compacted.

If you don’t get lots of snow, clearing the trail of any sticks, logs, rocks or bumps is REALLY Important. It’s a better experience while snow grooming and it also is much easier on your snow grooming equipment.

Questions you may want to ask yourself.

What gear do you need to keep your winter trails clean?

How frequently do you need to clean your trails?

Here are some tools we use to keep our trails clean:

• Chainsaw (echo, Stihl, or Husqvarna)
• Hand saw (Silky big boy)
• Shovel/pick
• Brush cutting saw (Echo)
• Brush mower (brush hog)
• Grass mower
• ATV, UTV, tractor

 

What to do in the summer for your Winter trails

 

A little planning and work in the summer go a long way to making your winter trails awesome.  We will go over the things that really need to be done in the summer.  It can be a little different depending on rocks or foliage on what you need to do.  So we will go over what we have had to do.

You need a different set of tools for the summer than winter.  Your snowmobile may be replaced with a motorbike and your side by side with tracks may just need wheels.  Whatever you use in the summer to help you cover your trails is ok.  Mostly you do not need to haul stuff away.

 

One of our trails is cut along a mountain that has a lot of rocks.  The first thing to do is to get rid of the rocks that fall down into the roadway in the spring.  If your trail has does NOT another trail below it then you can just toss the rocks off the trail on the lower side.  Then I want to look and see if there are other rocks that have a chance of falling onto the road and get those as well.  This seems obvious.  In the worst of cases, you might need to build a rock fence. 

This is not a fence built of rock but a fence that stops the rocks from getting onto your trail.

The thing you have to do is plan to do it.  Our problem is when summer comes and we want to ride our motorbikes.  I do not want to stop and clean up the trail or road.  Just make sure you plan it.

Trees and limbs fall in the winter or trees die in the winter.  Cut the ones that have a chance of blocking the trails.  Even limbs that will hang low with the snow.  Cutting back to account for growth can be wise.

We love to use an electric chainsaw.  Lightweight — always starts.  Easy to have an extender arm so you can reach far.

Even if you have to cut big trees it still works.  Just cut it in big enough chunks to get it away from the trail.  Unless you want firewood and have a side by Side then you can kill 2 birds with one trip.  Clean your trail and fill up the firewood pile. I am not saying big powerful chain saws are not useful.  Just hard to haul everywhere.  Some trees need to be cut with the big boys.

There are times when. You need to mow the grass, weeds, or small trees from the pathways.  It is easier to remove the small trees before they get big.  Plus in the summer you can cut them lower.

 

There are places where a pick and a shovel are needed.  To get a rock out, or to smooth out a rough place in the trail.  Or even to fix a lopsided place in the trail.  Hard to haul all this stuff if you are on a motorbike.  If your side by side fits down the trail things are just easier.  Plus they make for hauling wood back nice.

The best sleigh riding hill I ever made was a DC9 the neighbor brought over and just took the trees out and made a kind of half pipe run for us.  This was in the days before a half pipe existed to our knowledge.  We tubed it more than skied it.  But even now I do not have access to a DC9 caterpillar.  Just saying take advantage of your resources.  Well your friend’s dad’s resources.

We did have to cut him a few loads of firewood from the trees he removed.  It was a great trade for us.

Lastly, if you have culverts.  Clean them so parts of the trails do not get washed away in the rains or melting of snow next year.

 

So to go over the things to do.  The first is to plan it.  Otherwise, summer gets away and then winter comes and trails are harder to maintain.  Or maybe summer just gets in the way.  You really do have to set time aside to do it.  Second, do the maintenance needed for your winter tools.  In our minds, winter is too short and the snow leaves quickly.  Third, enjoy your time out even in the summer.