Tales from the Trail
- Louise Desmarais
- Apr 7
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 9
Ever wonder what it takes to create and maintain excellent groomed ski trails? At Kelowna Nordic, it takes a seasoned team of four dedicated people with diverse skills and the experience to deal with varying snow conditions and the challenges of unreliable, aging equipment.
This year, even though the snow was slow to come, the team was out on snowmobiles doing regular rolling to prepare the trails base before Kelowna Nordic opened. "This definitely helped us as we had low snow all winter," says Stefan Buhl, one of our groomers. "At the beginning of the season, we also had to clear fallen trees on the trails after heavy snow or windy nights.”
Stefan is a club member, avid skier, ski instructor and KNSSC volunteer team leader doing trail work. He has been employed as a groomer at Kelowna Nordic for two years. Stefan often lies awake planning grooming routes and thinking of ways to improve efficiency.
Grooming trails in the middle of the night by the lights of the snowcat requires intense concentration. "There isn't much opportunity to check out the scenery," says Stefan. "But occasionally I do stop the machine to take a sunrise shot." After his shift, Stefan would often go for a ski to check his work, and to flag danger trees for removal. In the off season, Stefan works as a bike mechanic at Cyclepath.
Jason Rock, a talented, conscientious individual, has been running snowcats at Big White for 15 years. Twice a week, after his shift at Big White, he drove to his second job at Kelowna Nordic to groom trails from 1:00 am to 7:30 am.
Chris Stewart is a very busy volunteer as a board member, Facilities Manager and self-appointed Operations Manager at Kelowna Nordic. He also oversees the maintenance of the snowcats. “A few times I started my shift at midnight to ride with the snowcat operators," says Chris. "Not the easiest thing to do but there were rewards such as seeing the gray and white flash of a wolf as it streaks across the hillside, or rabbits darting across the trail when the snowcat lights hit them.”
When Chris did a ride-along, he made notes for trail clearing work to be done for the next season. (Once he rode along with his tools, as they were pretty sure the machine would break down…and it did!) One of the biggest challenges this year was mechanical problems with the snowcats. “We had a few breakdowns," says Chris, "which made it difficult to get a good flow going. We had to switch machines in order to keep grooming.”
Phil Klotz, another invaluable Kelowna Nordic volunteer, was a groomer at Telemark for five years, and has 30 years’ experience in welding. Phil has headed our grooming program for three years handling everything from interviewing, hiring and training new operators, to planning grooming routes. Together Phil and Chris, a retired mechanic, have spent many, many volunteer hours performing a myriad of machine repairs to keep our snowcats moving - avoiding the need to bring in expensive labour.
Kudos to Phil, Stefan, Chris and Jason for providing excellent grooming against all odds this season!