Mountain Trails Grooming Association

Welcome

Welcome to the Mountain Trails Grooming Association website. While sledding is good at higher elevations, please be aware every trail has a hazard of some kind eg. water, ice, washout/slide areas, trees or areas of little or no snow. Ride with caution and be safe. We have completed our tree removal and all trails are open except Yellowjacket. It will not be groomed this year due to storm damage. If you carry a saw, feel free to help cut trees if you come across one. The grooming schedule is currently on hold for more snow. You can view the schedule by clicking on the Schedule tab.

Yellowjacket Update

We were hopeful that more snow could help with the Yellowjacket trail but unfortunately there is just too much damage from the atmospheric river earlier in the season. We will not groom this trail this season. We understand the Forest Service will work to restore it for next year. Here are a few more pictures of the trail or where it should be.

1/26 Grooming Report

We attempted to open and groom Yellowjacket today but this was the end of the trail for now. A big thank you to MVSA club members and the FS crew for helping cut wood! We were able to clear the trees in the switchback and several other trees before we came to the multiple areas of complete ice coverage. This trail has many areas with water, ice, mud and rocks in the lower section(see pictures below). Unfortunately, the Yellowjacket trail will need to get significant new snow before we can attempt this again.

1/22 Grooming Report

Removing moguls on lower Harts Pass. We also groomed Hwy 20 this chilly morning with a temperature of 4° at Cutthroat. The Harts Pass trail to Ballard has 2 washout/slide areas and 1 area that has had water in the trail but is now frozen with patchy snow. The snow is thin which prohibits completely removing the moguls, so we anticipate they will be back soon. We just need more snow!

1/21 Grooming Report

Beautiful chilly 11° morning on the way to Buck Lake. Tree removal was completed today on the Sherwood Forest Loop. A big thanks to Methow Valley Snowmobile Club members for cutting the trees.

There has been lots of water on this section of trail. Most of it is frozen now but will return with warmer temperatures. Be careful crossing Ortell Creek, it is currently running a lot of water for this time of year and there is not enough snow for a snow bridge.

We also groomed from Eightmile to Sweetgrass today. The trail is holding up well. The drifts on top are still a little bumpy. Even Sweetgrass needs more snow!

Trees

MVSA cutting trees

Sherwood Forest

Water Crossing

Cub Pass

Sweetgrass

1/20 Grooming Report

Today we groomed W. Buttermilk Rd to Black Pine Lake, Poorman Creek, Libby Creek and to Foggy Dew. Temperatures were 12° at the start. We removed 15 trees and several rocks from the trails. The snow is light at lower elevations and a little better higher up. There is dirt showing on the trail in Poorman Creek. This trail will not be groomed again until we receive more snow.