Eastern Groomer and Island # 4 are still working together to get everything opened. We are now at 66 consecutive hours of breaking through the trail system. We came from Souris on Trail # 100 heading west to St. Peter’s and Mount Stewart. This section of trail had enormous amounts of snow especially through the blueberry fields near Morell. Both machines were close to 6 hours busting through the 10 foot high banks and it was extremely slow work, Finally after 10 pm they were able to make it to Mount Stewart before heading back down the Route # 104 towards Lake Verde. Both machines headed in the #105 towards Mount Herbert hoping that this new trail might offer a section with a little less snow, but as one of the operators told me this morning this is the worst section of trail we have seen in 4 days of busting banks. When the trail is this hard to get through we go through a tremendous amount of fuel and before they could finish we had to retreat back to Grandview for fuel and fix a couple of hydraulic leaks. We will return back to the 105 and finish opening this section before hooking on to drags and starting all over again. I can not believe the amount of time it is taking to get these trails open as it is the worst I have seen in 25 years of managing the groomers. The operators have done a splendid job of keeping the machines running through these massive snow banks and drifts but unfortunately it is taking longer than we had hoped (not from lack of effort). Hopefully we can finish breaking through the final tough sections today and start with the drags. For those who will be riding this weekend please understand that the trails are not perfect yet but passable and you need to be very careful
