Have you ever dreamed of building your own ski or snowboard resort?
Imagine skiing on your very own groomed runs that you created.
Snow grooming is a really important piece to being able to create your own backyard ski resort. You have the ability to create cat tracks for flat areas to be able to ski and access different areas. You also have the ability to groom downhill trails that allow you to keep the snow from getting moguls, bumps, and ruts.
Now, some people think that you need a large Snowcat with a tiller to be able to create the kind of ski resort experience with the corduroy, the smooth and flat trails. That is not true.
If you have a snowmobile and the desire to get out there in the snow, you can tow a compact snow grooming implement that allows you to level and smooth out your trails and then lay down perfect corduroy.
Depending on how big your trails are, you have multiple different options for the width.
Let’s first start with Cat Tracks.
On a run up at our cabin, it ends up in a ravine that we’ve been clearing out. The problem with that is this ravine is very flat and also collects a lot of snow in there, and it stays nice and shaded. Box brush trees and tree stumps to make it accessible with our snowmobile and our snow groomer. So that when we ski down to the cat track, you hit the corduroy which is already compact, allowing you to continue the speed and go out all the way to the bottom where the pickup point is.
This has been very good for our kids and everyone who is not used to skiing in deep snow.
Some runs that we use to put in some corduroy lanes that we ski down, allowing kids on some of the less steep runs (like a green run) to be able to gain speed and confidence in their turning.
This is really easy to do. Like I said, you can tow these compact snow groomers with a snowmobile, an ATV, or a UTV.
The other thing that’s really important with grooming the trails that you ski on or use to access your ski runs is to be able to level and knock out any of the snowmobile whoops or ruts that are made from your machines driving up and down your trail.
We recommend grooming as often as possible after heavy use and also after every time it snows. This way it continues to compress and knock the air out of the snow, which makes a nice hard level surface to use.
You also, on some of the level areas, put in a cross-country skiing lane or circuit for those who love to get some exercise.
Now that you’ve read this far, I’m going to tell you a little bit about our background. About 12-13 years ago, we bought a Sno-master 48 from the original owner Rick for our property here in Utah. My dad has a small horse ranch, and we have a 1.5-mile road that goes up the back mountain that we use to access for sledding, skiing, and snowboarding.
The problem is, it’s an out-and-back, meaning there is no loop. We have to drive up and then come straight back down that same trail, which causes the trail to get really torn up with ruts and bumps and acceleration whoops (snowmobile whoops).
We tried all sorts of different implements that we could find around the farm to be able to level and smooth that out, but it didn’t do very good. So I talked my dad and my brother into pitching in to buy a Snowmaster 48 to tow behind our track UTV in snowmobiles, and it was a game-changer. It completely leveled and smoothed out all of our trails, compacting the snow if we had low snow.
We can compress that snow; it freezes up really hard, really makes the sledding, skiing, and snowboarding also really fun. The kids can turn easily, and they’re not feeling like they’re hitting ruts or bumps or getting caught in ruts or bumps. It was amazing.
It also introduced an obsession with snow grooming to be able to make sure our trails are as perfect as possible. So even when I’m hauling the kids back up the run, I would actually tow a snow groomer and level and groom as we’re going up and down, so they almost had perfect corduroy going up and down. Really made it a really good experience, and for the money, super awesome. Everyone in our family has enjoyed the benefits of it.
As the years pass, we were able to purchase a 400-acre mini-ranch in the mountains of Utah with lots of vertical skiing and snowboarding. It has miles of roads that we have to groom and level. It gets around any time there’s 5-6 feet of snow on the ground, so it’s a kind of a challenge with all the different roads. The wind, snow drifts, and everything like that. But we were able to get our equipment in there, groom our trails, and it’s really made for an amazing experience. Here’s a photo below of our property.