Trails and Grooming at Omineca Ski Club

Dedicated volunteers maintaining quality trails
ABOUT OUR TRAILS

The Omineca Ski Club maintains over 26 km of groomed trails with every level of difficulty.  We also periodically groom trails outside of our recreational area in the adjacent Burns Lake Community Forest.  When the Spud system and Cedar routes are included there are about 45 km of groomed trails.

‘You are Here’ maps are posted throughout our trails (within the recreational area).  Maps can be downloaded  from our website or some hard copies  can be found in the waxing cabin (or posted on the front wall outside).  All of our trails are signed and named.

Our grooming protocol defines the priorities that will be followed after a snowfall.

GROOMING VOLUNTEERS

We have several dedicated volunteers who maintain the trails in the winter. During the summer and fall, OSC often holds work bees to mow, trim and do tree removal on the trails. At times, we get assistance from local businesses as well as the Wildfire crew. We held a grooming clinic in January 2017 to help to train more groomers on some of the machines. 

GROOMING MACHINES

We maintain three different machines in our grooming program:

The newest is the Bombardier (“Bombi”). With the skill of our operators and the widening to most of our trails, we can now get most of the system of trails completed efficiently by this one machine.

The Piston Bullie went through a major overhaul during the 2012/13 season and is used as our back-up machine.  We use it to groom some of the narrower trails and it is required during the shoulder seasons.

The snowmobile, with its upgraded trailer hitch in 2014, is a very versatile tool to get trails done quickly when the other machines are not available.  It was used extensively on the dog trails over the 2013/14 season.

TRAIL MAINTENANCE

During the off season, there are scheduled workbees for members to help in keeping the trails ready for the ski season.  Notifications of these workbees are usually sent out by email or will be posted on the website and Facebook.  If it weren’t for the efforts of all the volunteers of the club, much of this work would not get completed.

We also have a tractor, donated by the Williams Family, that is used to keep the grass mowed in both the stadium area and on the trails.

Thanks to Sean Broadworth, the current executive member in charge for organizing the events and keeping track of where all the blowdown has happened.  If you want to spend some time working on any trails, then give Sean a call and he can set you up with a plan.