Jacoby

TOLLGATE — Riders were “itching to get out,” Ryan Hensley said, and the snowstorms scratched that spot you can never quite reach without help.

Hensley is with the La Grande Sno-Drifters snowmobile club.

And in common with his counterparts in clubs across Northeast Oregon, Hensley has watched with gratitude as a sluggish start to the snowmobile season suddenly accelerated.

Quickly.

“We’ve been getting quite a bit of snow,” Hensley said on the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 17, as the latest in a series of storms was depositing a fresh coat of powder across the region.

The dramatic shift in the weather pattern, after an abnormally warm and relatively dry December, has prompted the volunteer-run snowmobile clubs to put their trail groomers to work smoothing hundreds of miles of routes.

Hensley said the La Grande Sno-Drifters’ groomer has been busy since last week.

The groomer has plied trails to Mount Emily’s summit and in the Catherine Creek/Road 77 area, with plans to start in the Anthony Lakes area.

Whitey Bloom, with the Panhandle Snowmobile Club in Halfway, said the club’s groomer has been busy on trails in the southern Wallowas, including the popular route to the Fish Lake area.

Bloom said on Jan. 17 that snow had risen to about the 5-foot mark on the pole the club places near Fish Lake.

An automated snow-measuring station in the area, at Schneider Meadow, recorded 30 inches of snow from Jan. 4-12.

“Things are looking up,” Bloom said.

Literally, in the case of the escalating walls of snow along Highway 204 through the northern Blue Mountains between Elgin and Weston.

That’s the domain of the Tollgate Trail Finders Snowmobile Club, and its two groomers have been covering a lot of miles since grooming started on Jan. 13, said Brandon Christensen, a past president of the club.

“There’s plenty of snow to groom now,” Christensen said on Jan. 17.

Less than two weeks earlier, there wasn’t enough to justify bringing the machines out.

Christensen said groomer drivers focused first on building the “ramps” that riders use to surmount those frozen walls at the multiple places where snowmobile trails cross the highway.

Groomers have also smoothed trails that connect three sno-parks in the area, as well as the popular trail leading to the club’s warming shelter at Bone Springs, Christensen said.

The drivers had more than snow to deal with, though.

Gale-force winds that accompanied the snow toppled dozens of trees along the trail system, Christensen said.

Although drivers could use groomers to push smaller trees out of the way, he said many required chain saws. Jess Thompson, the club’s grooming chairman, posted on the club’s Facebook page that on Jan. 16 the two groomers removed 36 trees, ranging from 4 inches to 24 inches in diameter, on Jubilee 64 Road, Skyline 6403 and 6411 roads, and the Elk trail.

Despite frigid weather — Christensen said the temperature stayed below zero on Jan. 13 — a large number of riders sampled trails during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

“Obviously everyone was excited to get out,” he said.

Christensen said conditions have been ideal for grooming trails, with cold temperatures that help the snow settle into a firm, but not icy, base.

“Obviously everyone was excited to get out.”

— Brandon Christensen, Tollgate Trail Finders Snowmobile Club