Member's News
Dec 11th, 2011 - Cross-Country Ski Trails are ready as never before.
This fall's long periods of dry weather have allowed our volunteers and hired bulldozer/excavator operators unprecedented opportunities to improve and add to the ski trails in the Haliburton Highlands. Renewing members and those wishing to enjoy skiing on our trails are reminded that after December 15th, the price of Season Passes will increase. Major improvements have been completed at Moosewoods, with a new short loop and much widening and smoothing of the main loops and at Glebe Park, again, we have done widening and smoothing of the new trails added last year and many drainage improvements. Also at Twin Lakes, widening, smoothing and drainage have been worked on with great intensity. The Willow Beach Trail at the Resorts Area has had a bypass cleared to avoid a wet hole and two stream crossings and we look forward to having the golf course loops to be the first for skiing action as they require less snow for the initial grooming.
At the Frost Centre, there has been a major change of operations, with ski pass sales on site at the Algonquin Highlands Trails Office. See the Municipality of Algonquin Highlands' website, look for Trails, then Ski and Snowshoe Trails. Their staff have also been busy with a trail addition going through the old sawmill as well as many sections of trail widening. Their season pass prices have a discount if purchased before December 15th.
A reminder: contact membership@skihaliburton.com or phone Joleen Thomas at 705-489-4850 to purchase your ski club season pass before December 15th. The club website for more information about programs, trails and conditions is www.skihaliburton.com.
Peter Brogden
Haliburton Highlands X-C Ski Club
Update: Nov 29th, 2011 - Registration Meeting
To all X-C skiers, past members and potential new members of the Haliburton Highlands X-C Ski Club:
Our Registration Meeting will be in Glebe Park at the clubhouse on Saturday, 3rd December 2011, starting at 10 am. Even if you have registered online, come to meet other skiers and to find out what is new on the ski trails. Sign up for Mid-Week Skiing, learn about the Jack Rabbit program, find out how you can join in as a volunteer to help the club.
For more information, look for the 2011-2012 Newsletter on the Newsletter page.
For further information or inquiries please use info@skihaliburton.com. You will receive a response within 24 hours.
This is the most attractive of three outings I am going to mention, but of course you can come on all three or any one or two of them!
Thursday 1st Dec. or Friday 2nd Dec., how about a hike on C5V and the Ridge Trail going south and checking out the status of a spectacular variant on the trail? This variant was wiped out by the trees brought down by the August 2006 tornados and it might be possible to clear them out of the way now. The variant uses a ledge that traverses a steep rock face to ascend the long line of cliffs that the present Ridge Trail gets around by diverting 1/2 km to the east. I dream of the trail variant ascending the "Stairway to Heaven" to rejoin the Ridge Trail at the SW end of the tornado damage. Of course, to reverse the trail is to follow "Don Giovanni's Descent into Hell" ! I am hoping Chris Card from AH Trails Dept. can come with us and bring a chainsaw to do the heavy clearing work. Let me know if we can make this happen.
The other two are Wed. 23rd Nov, moving gravel in Glebe Park at 10.30am for 3 hours and Friday 25th at Moosewoods, 10 am start. On that day, Len Pizzey and a few others have a backhoe booked to work on drainage stuff on the "5 km " circuit and I have said I will try to get a few to clear the Hydro Line Trail. Dave Williamson is lined up to drive the ATV/Bushhog, and we shall also need a brushsaw, lopping shears, pruning saws, shovels etc.
The hike is even better with a little snow, but it looks like that won't happen yet.
For further information or enquiries please use info@skihaliburton.com. You will receive a response within 24 hours.
Update: Oct 15th, 2011 - Reported by Peter Brogden
By the time this gets posted and read on the skihaliburton.com website, the work party arranged for Sunday 16th Oct. should have come and gone. The arrangements for the work party had to be done at rather short notice, so the messages went out mostly by email to those members we knew. "We" being Len and Kit Pizzey and myself. Christer Nilsson did get time to send a note out to all members but as most responses have come back via personal email addresses and not through info@skihaliburton.com, we know the system is not being used fully. Eventually, our hope is that club members will call up the website regularly to check for the latest news. Very soon, the news will be all about registration and of course, a few days later we should be posting snow reports!
At any rate, in a couple of days we shall be into moose hunt and little can be done except in Glebe Park. If there is outstanding work needed to complete the new trail at Moosewoods, we hope that a small group can do this on Monday and/or Tuesday 24/25 Oct. Please use the info@skihaliburton.com address to let us know if you are able to help on either of those days.
Click on images to enlarge them
These two pictures show some of the crew who were out on Sept. 21st with a small excavator rented from CRS. Marty Scheller, Ed Cyr and Dave Bathe worked for an 11 hour day (the excavator is rented for 24 hours!) to improve drainage on the “Round the Mountain Trail”, part of the new trails beyond Glebe Park. On the same day another crew grass-seeded the “Summit Loop” and few days later another crew completed grass-seeding on the Round the Mountain Trail. So I am very happy to report that all the seeding for this fall was done before the leaves came down! Now we just have to watch it grow.
Within the established trails of Glebe Park there have been a number of smaller drainage improvement jobs done and being done. With the pics I have of these activities, I thought a demonstration of the sizes of rocks that can be moved could be shown. Conventional wisdom says that a rock the size of you head can be moved by one person. So, will a rock that can just be moved by 3 “white hairs” (aka mid-week skiers) contain more grey matter than the heads of the movers?
Ed Cyr shows that it can be done more easily with something bigger!
And of course, Larry Hewitt's gang shows what real men do! (From fall 2010 work)
Click on images to enlarge them
There will be more reports soon on the work on the Willow Beach, Twin Lakes and Frost Centre Trails. With the new management at the Frost Centre (Algonquin Highlands Trails Department has now taken over the trail maintenance and insurance, with the Ski Friends of the Frost Centre continuing to look after the welcoming of skiers at the trailside shelters), a new arrangement for Haliburton Ski Club Members who ski there has yet to be worked out.
All enquiries, suggestions and comments, please send to info@skihaliburton.com.
