When you think of treacherous sledding activities, grooming trails might not be the first thing that comes to mind. But appearances can be deceiving, as Barry Richardson, the president of the Lee River Snow Riders near Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, explained. His club spends a significant amount of time making sure their 240-kilometre trail system is in pristine condition.
“The preparation that goes into getting those trails (into shape)—the pre-season checks and all the work we have to get them to that condition—is unbelievable,” said Richardson. “People don’t recognize some of the dangers associated with it. We sit around the table as our executive and try to have a plan for everything.”
A season begins with preliminary checks to assess some of the dangers involved with grooming the trails. Because much of their trail system crosses over swampland, the Lee River club is faced with treacherous ice conditions as well as large beaver dams. Swamp water levels will change over the winter, leaving hanging ice behind. To get the groomers over top of the dams, the ice must be between 25 and 38 centimetres thick.
One of the things the Lee River club has done is install roof-mounted escape hatches on their groomers. If a groomer falls a metre into a swamp, the ice could make it impossible to open the door. Water could begin to flood the machine—a situation that could prove fatal, said Richardson.
“There was an incident where a man sunk his groomer and couldn’t get out or break a window,” said Richardson. “He phoned his wife and told her what had happened. He was sitting in water up to his chest and couldn’t get out, and by the time help got there, he was gone. We tell that story, because there’s no way I want something like that to happen to anybody. So we buy these things, we install them and we don’t allow our groomers to go out by themselves. It’s a whole safety management system.”
