Would you like to know how to groom a snowmobile trial effectively? The key steps of the process are as follows:
- Don’t overlook off-season trail maintenance
- Choose the right equipment
- Understand the basics of grooming
- Groom the trails based on environmental conditions
- Manage the trail’s width
- Stay on the trail
- Be careful and take it slow
If you would like to learn how to groom a snowmobile trail, this post is for you. We at PowerSportsGuide have done the research and compiled the basics of trail grooming under one roof!
How to Groom Snowmobile Trails
Contrary to popular belief, grooming a snowmobile trail doesn’t just mean driving a groomer vehicle along the trail. Since snow and weather conditions are constantly changing this makes trail grooming challenging in most cases. Therefore, professional grooming requires a lot of skill and experience!
Whether you’re a volunteer or want to be a professional trail groomer, you may want to know how to effectively and efficiently groom a snowmobile trail.
Grooming trails is quite expensive, so it’s recommended that you pick up the basics before hitting the trails. Let’s drill into the details and check how to properly groom a snowmobile trail!
(Beyond these basic tips it’s highly recommended that you take part in trail grooming training.)
Chose the Right Equipment
For best trail quality, the equipment you use must fit local conditions. Since many of these conditions vary throughout the season, the equipment should also be adaptive as much as possible.
Let’s see what the necessary equipment is for grooming snowmobile trails!
The Vehicle
Simply put, trail grooming requires two main pieces of equipment, the “groomer drag or tiller” and a towing vehicle. Unlike small cross-country ski and fat bike trails, maintaining snowmobile trails requires very durable professional equipment.
The reason for this is that snowmobile trails are significantly wider and must withstand heavy traffic. Therefore, they have to be groomed by wider and heavier equipment.
In most cases, snowmobiles, ATVs, or UTVs tend to be too small and not powerful enough for this process. That’s why most snowmobile trails are groomed by tracked tractors or snowcats!
Special snowcats for trail grooming are known as ski groomers or snow groomers. Since they are specifically designed for this task, they can maintain the snow on trails very effectively.
Drawbacks?
Let’s face it, professional snow groomers come with hefty price tags and high maintenance costs. Moreover, they can only be used for snow maintenance.
In contrast, tractors can be used year-round for many different purposes. The only trick is that you must replace their tracks with wheels after the season. Moreover, they are much cheaper than snowcats.
Consequently, tractors are still the most popular grooming vehicles in the U.S. and Canada. Let’s see the key factors that you should consider in selecting the right machine for your trails!
- Dimensions
- Weight
- Flotation
- Towing capacity
- Climbing and turning ability while towing the drag
- Ease of use
- Maintenance needs/parts availability
- Purchase price
- Maintenance costs
Groomer Drag vs. Tiller
Besides the towing vehicle, the other essential piece of grooming equipment is the rear implement, which is often referred to as trail groomer drag.
These heavy metal frames are equipped with a set of cutters that level the snow, while the weight of the assembly packs and smooths the surface. As their name suggests, groomer drags must be towed behind the vehicle.
Another commonly used piece of trail equipment is known as the tiller, which is a rotating cylinder that continuously grinds the snow.
When it comes to the groomer drag vs. tiller debate, many experts say that drags do a better job because they pack the snow better, which results in longer seasons. Moreover, drags provide a smoother surface if the snow is moist.
Others argue that tillers are better since they are easier to store and transport. Moreover, they are also easier to pull and work with. Tillers can be lifted, so the vehicle can even spin in one spot. Therefore, they don’t have to detached as often as drags.
In contrast, with a drag behind the machine requires large spots for turning, which can cause a lot of headaches for the operator.
Also, in deeper snow the drag works like a boat anchor, which can make towing very difficult in deep snow or on a trail with moguls. Since tillers don’t “bite” into the snow, they can be towed much easier in deep snow or on steeper hills.
On top of that, tillers can widen the trails more safely since they are not prone to getting stuck or slipping off the shoulder of the trail.
But if you are stuck on using drags, here are the most important factors to consider in picking the right one:
- Width: the majority of snowmobile groomer drags are 8-10 feet wide.
- Length: The longer the drag the smoother surface it can produce. On the other hand, a drag that is too long can cause issues in tight turns.
- Weight: The drag has to be heavy to smooth the moguls efficiently, but it must not overload the capacity of the vehicle either.
- Cutting ability: Don’t overlook the number and the position of the cutters.
- Compatibility: The drag must match the size and power of the tractor. This is arguably one of the most important factors to consider!
As a rule of thumb, the vehicle should be powerful enough to tow the drag even in deep snow. On the other hand, the tracks of the tractor/snowcat shouldn’t be wider than the drag.
Having a front blade on the vehicle can also help the grooming process in many ways.
Understand the Basics of Grooming
Grooming snowmobile trails is quite expensive, so it’s recommended that you learn the basics of the process upfront.
Simply put, grooming the snow means cutting, mixing, packing, and smoothing the snow along the trail. In a nutshell, there are two main purposes of trail grooming:
- Create a smooth surface on the entire trail, which ensures a safe and comfortable riding experience for snowmobilers.
- Build and maintain a massively compacted base that can tolerate heavy traffic. A properly compacted trail base is the key to longer seasons.
It’s good to know that many variables affect the quality of the groomed trail. Let’s drill into the nitty-gritty and see how to properly groom snowmobile trails!
How to Groom Snowmobile Trails
Understand the Snow Conditions
Since snow conditions vary from one day to the next, groomer operators need to pay close attention to them. Here are the most important factors you should keep in mind when grooming a snowmobile trail:
- New snowfall typically consists of small snowflakes. It also has low density meaning that there is a lot of air space in it. Additionally, new snowfall is relatively dry in most cases.
- This fresh and dry snow is harder to groom especially if the temperature is low. This is because the snow has difficulty sticking together in this state.
- For proper bonding the temperature of the snow must be below freezing. As a rule of thumb, an outside temperature between +23º F and -5º F ensures the best grooming conditions.
- If the temperature is about 32º F it makes grooming difficult since the snow starts to stick together. At this temperature, the snow spills out from the drag, leaving dangerous chunks behind it.
Grooming the Trail
Best practice is to start grooming at the beginning of snow season. Starting to pack the snow as early as possible ensures a firmly compacted trail base!
If the base is fine, the trail typically should be groomed only weekly during the season. When you groom a snowmobile trail, you have to pay attention to many things, but the most important are as follows:
Stay on the trail: It’s extremely important to stay on the trail at all times. If you drive the vehicle off compacted snow, it can easily get stuck or even sink in the fresh snow. This can lead to lost grooming time or even equipment damage. Therefore, do not leave the trail for any reason!
Don’t follow snowmobile tracks: It’s also not recommended that you follow snowmobile tracks with your groomer. Snowmobiles are prone to going off-trail, especially in the corners. Thus, if you follow these tracks you risk your groomer sliding off the shoulder of the trail, or even getting damaged by stumps, rocks, or other buried obstacles.
Take it slow: The ideal grooming speed on snowmobile trails is about 8-10 MPH. This means if you have to groom 60 miles, it will be 7-8 hours of work! Grooming too fast results in lower quality and a greater chance of damage! It’s also good to know that grooming is typically done at night.
Thanks to lower temperatures the process is more efficient, while the low (or zero) traffic makes it much safer. It’s also good to know that the trail should set for about 2-6 hours before snowmobiles hit on its surface.
Minimizing the trail width: It’s safe to say that the trail width is strongly affected by the width of the grooming equipment. Best practice is not to groom the trail wider that is needed for two-way traffic.
The general rule is that the optimal groomed trail width is 1.5 – 2 times the width of the groomer drag.
If the groomed area is not wider than necessary, you can focus maintaining a smaller area that results in higher trail quality. Moreover, this helps to save fuel and puts less wear and tear on the grooming equipment.
Another drawback of wide trails is that snowmobilers tend to ride on it too fast. This is not only dangerous but also contributes to the formation of moguls.
Here’s a great video on how to properly groom a snowmobile trail:
Off-Season Trail Maintenance
When it comes to grooming snowmobile trails, off-season trail maintenance is often overlooked.
However, careful trail care starts before the first snowflakes appear in the sky! This is because the surface of the trail bed heavily impacts the quality of the snow surface. A rough trail bed can end in a moguled and rough trail surface!
Off-season snowmobile trail maintenance involves removing rocks, ruts, debris and eliminating holes as precisely as possible. Removing tree limbs and brushing also leads to more snow and cleaner trails throughout the season.
Conclusion
Grooming a trail means compacting the snow to get a uniformly firm density while smoothing the surface.
Contrary to popular belief, grooming a snowmobile trail isn’t easy. In fact, it involves far more than driving the groomer vehicle along the trail. Instead, it requires a lot of skill and practice.
There are many things that need to be paid attention to during the operation, but the most important are arguably as follows:
- Choose the right vehicle and groomer drag/tiller.
- Know your equipment and the different snow conditions.
- Always stay on the trail, and don’t follow snowmobile tracks.
- Take it slow, the ideal grooming speed is about 8-10 mph.
- The optimal grooming temperature is between +23º F and -5º F.
- Don’t groom the trail too wide. (Best trail width is 1.5 times the groomer drag width.)
- Always do the grooming at night if possible.
- Start grooming the trail at the beginning of the season to get a firm trail base.
- Don’t forget to do off-season trail maintenance.
These are just the very basics of how to groom snowmobile trails. But if you want to become a professional trail groomer, it’s recommended that you take part in snow groomer operator training!
References
https://www.snowtechmagazine.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-trail-grooming/
https://www.snowmobile.com/how-to/an-insiders-look-at-trail-grooming-1269.html
