The Upper Canada Snowmobile Region supports a District led grooming model built upon the following principles:
- Maximized use of finite resources (people, funding and equipment).
- Strong collaboration with clubs with a focus on trail building and maintenance and volunteer management.
- Coordinating with club volunteers to ensure best possible rider experience.
- Maintaining safe and accessible trails for snowmobilers.
- Improved operational efficiency across the district.
- Borderless grooming that optimizes route coverage within the district.
- Optimized groomer utilization with a minimum number of operating hours per week per groomer and each groomer managing about 100 km of trails.
- Maintenance performed in accordance with OEM specifications and industry best practices.
- A sufficient pool of qualified operators to achieve grooming schedules.
- Operator health & safety as the highest priority.
- The resources to achieve a district coordinated grooming model must not be more than the current resources in terms of both people and financial funding.
- Reduced (or equal) overall operational groomer risk relative to current grooming practices.
- Flexible grooming operations, including:
- Coordinated grooming and maintenance schedules across the district;
- Consideration of snow conditions, weather, temperature, traffic patterns, and overall needs of the trail system; and
- Grooming frequency is sufficient to meet trail quality standards.
- Equipment is maintained at the highest possible standard to ensure reliability, equipment safety, operator safety, and rider safety
Collaborative Implementation
To operationalize these principles, the UCSR will work collaboratively with:
- The OFSC Fleet Department to:
- maintain an optimal fleet size; and
- ensure fleet maintenance and repairs are completed in a timely fashion to maximize availability.
- Clubs to:
- Support trail location, development, and route adjustments.
- Ensure grooming routes are adjusted in conjunction with trail relocation.
- Recruit and train Trail volunteers, to maintain trails in a condition suitable for safe and efficient grooming.
- Prepare trail for grooming by completing required trail maintenance.
- Assist with packing with trail equipment (ATV, SxS, Argo, etc.), where applicable.
- Assist with ice/swamp inspections.
- Assist with recruitment of potential operators.
- Provide input and recommendations to the area grooming plan and schedule.
- Monitor and recommend adjustments to grooming frequency in response to changes in traffic and weather.
- Assist with groomer recovery when groomers are broken, damaged or other.
- Correct missing signage quickly that was been identified by grooming team.
- Respond to requests from grooming team for repairs or corrections to trail related issues and hazards.
- Maintain a high level of communication with the grooming team.
- Establish communications early and identify needs early with the grooming team for any specifical events.