Miles to Groom
Miles to Groom
Johnny Schmitt, on the other hand, is wide-awake, pulling on long underwear, green woolen trousers, and insulated boots. He has miles to go this night and almost a foot of snow to push through. His mount awaits—three tons of machine painted bright orange and loaded with two batteries, two heaters, and two caterpillar treads for pulling the trail groomer.
Schmitt, who lives on the side of a hill in Marshfield, Vt., (pop. 262) spends much of his working life in machines like this old Tucker Sno-Cat. When he isn’t grooming trails in Plainfield and Marshfield, he digs foundations, or scoops out ponds, or routes ditches with various kinds of earthmovers.
It’s no coincidence that snow trails in this neighborhood tend to cross at Schmitt’s place. The Twinfield Snow Travelers maintain more than 40 miles of trail, much of the total added since Schmitt inherited the volunteer trailmaster job four years ago.
Schmitt is 6-foot-5 or so, wire thin, and talks practical talk—hunting, fishing, conservation, firefighting, logging, road conditions, construction, zoning, stock cars, and septic science—and knows just about everyone who owns land on the trail system.
The Tucker that pulls the groomer over the trails is in prime condition, even though the seats are in rough shape, and Schmitt says he can’t hear himself think while the rig is under way. The groomer it pulls is little more than a heavy smoothing device made of steel spars that rake and pack the snow by sheer weight. He tries not to bash the steel into twisted shapes by banging into ground hazards, but stumps and boulders take their toll, and this isn’t the rig for an air-smooth ride. Bouncy is more like it—and not gentle bouncy, either.
Schmitt isn’t much of a snowmobiler himself. He used to be, but gave it up a few years ago, having seen pretty much all the backwoods he wanted to. Besides, he gets to see plenty of winter scenery as it is.
You’d think light, fresh, powdery snow would be ideal for snowmobiles, but it’s not. “Any more than a few inches and most machines are helpless,” Schmitt says. The groomer packs the snow to an ice-like consistency so the steel studs embedded in most snowmobile drive belts have something to bite into. “Otherwise they would swerve and waddle around in puffy or slushy snow,” he says.
Schmitt can’t groom all 42 miles of trail in one swoop. He divides his route into three chunks and, at perhaps 4 mph, it can be a chore to squeeze it all in. “Any faster than that and you’d rattle the rig to pieces. You really feel every rock and stump on the trail, especially the first couple of times.”
His route takes him from his house on Beaver Meadow Road to a suspension bridge in a rural Calais neighborhood near the Cate Farm and as far north as Lanesboro Village in the Groton State Forest. Quite a lot of trail maintenance, bridge repair, and sign posting goes on in the off-season. Schmitt estimates he stakes around 200 signs a season along the trails and at dozens of intersections within the Twinfield Snow Travelers’ territory. “We leave up maybe another 75 each year, mostly attached to trees. We replace them as necessary,” he says.
Schmitt has developed a weather eye for snow depth. “If there’s eight inches at my house, I assume a few more toward the state forest and a little less in Calais. If it stays cold and there’s lots of traffic, I can groom every day. A hard base pack is important. A few warm days and we’re back to waiting for more snow.”
But for now, the snow is falling—and he has miles to groom before he sleeps.
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