1st time grooming snow on fairways

[duckychucky]

2 feet of snow was really too much, so I groomed our
short course yesterday with a large tractor and ski trail
groomer. It packed it down pretty nice to where I will
wear micro-spikes now instead of snowshoes and as long
as you land in the fairway you won't lose a disc or need
ribbons. Anyone else groom the snow on fairways? The
tradeoff is that now it will stay icy longer and take longer
to melt when it does get warm, but I'm not going to
groom the long course so that will melt faster.

[Martin Dewgarita]

I'm always tempted to take the snowmobile out and pack down the fairways, usually someone gets out there on snowmobiles and tracks it up all over, that helps quite a bit. BRP always 'plows' their fairways, which is somewhat packed, somewhat push snow around, it plays pretty well. I've never heard of using ski groomers, I'm sure that's pretty ideal if you have the equipment available to you.

[TheArnoldPalmer]

what is this snow you speak of?

[JC17393]

I've been "grooming" snow on my course for a few years now. For the most part, I do it with an ATV and some sort of heavy drag (I've used truck tailgates, an old boxspring, a chainlink fence gate, and other homemade concoctions...anything that smooths and compacts). Some areas are sloped in an awkward direction to safely drive or get too deep for the ATV to handle, so we've got a couple snowmobilers who go through those areas, sometimes with a drag-behind groomer, sometimes not.

I've also cleared fairways with an RTV equipped with a snow plow. It worked great except for the ever growing piles on the sides of the fairway. Players that strayed offline had to climb over these piles and then track through deeper untouched snow for their discs.

My goal has become less about making things ideal for walking and more to disrupt and compress as much snow as I can on the fairways so that discs don't bury themselves as easily. Side effect of that is that walking is much easier, especially in the spots I have to repeatedly go over to get everything done, but it isn't perfect walking...still some spots where you can sink past the tops of your boots or deeper.

[mashnut]

The compacted snow for walking on makes the biggest difference IMO, trudging through knee deep snow all day is tough, searching for discs when you can walk around more easily is much less tiring.

[cjskier]

You guys need to take up skiing...

[GoldenThrower]

Not getting any of this good weather? Supposed to be 55-57 deg here in Michigan tomorrow, and the rain from today has pretty much done away with all the snow already. Unfortunately now I will have to deal with the mud instead.

[sgamerp]

^ where are you in Michigan?

[1978]

Doesn't this all add to additional erosion when the fairway melts to the ground and the only place for the snow along the edges to go is down the fairways. Seems to me compressing would be best...so it melts last and keeps erosion off the fairways.

[Toro71]

Originally Posted by TheArnoldPalmer

what is this snow you speak of?

Dude, exactly. This short thread is freaking fascinating to me.

I've heard tales of this snow of which you speak...it's like white cold fluffy stuff? Falls from the sky?

I'm playing tomorrow, and it's supposed to be 72 degrees, and I'm not exaggerating.

"Winter" being a relative term, for sure.

It's making me think about how completely different a round of DG would be in REAL snow. Everything, from how you play it, shot selection, everything.

I suppose I should just stop here and look for one of the 47 threads that deal with that subject in infinite detail.