Iron Belle Trail fires up new trail groomer

TOM LAVENTURE

tlaventure@yourdailyglobe.com

Bessemer - After years of pulling borrowed groomers with an old snowmobile, a volunteer has new equipment to help step up the frequency and quality of Iron Belle Trail conditions for cross country skiers and snowshoers this winter season.

Randy Ahnen, who is vice president of the nonprofit Wolverine Nordic Trails, also lives adjacent to the Bessemer trailhead of the Iron Belle Trail, and has volunteered his time and equipment to groom the trail since the Ironwood segment opened in 2014. This year, the friends of the Iron Belle Trail organization purchased a pull-behind groomer that is designed for smaller vehicles and snowmobiles. 

"They purchased that with the intention of grooming the Iron Belle in the winter," Ahnen said. "Since I was trying to do that with my snowmobile using some other pieces of equipment that I would borrow from people, they wanted to make the investment and have their own piece of grooming equipment as a means to groom the Iron Belle Trail."

Pulling groomers was a little too much for Ahnen's old snowmobile, so he now uses his personal all-terrain vehicle. He replaced the tires with tracks just two weeks ago and is anxious to start grooming with it for the first time when there is more snow.

"We've been trying to groom the trail since it opened and I was using my snowmobile to pull whatever grooming equipment I had," Ahnen said. "The snowmobile was an older machine that gave me some mechanical problems last year and I kind of retired it, if you will."

The groomer is a steel sled that compacts the snow while adjustable teeth break up crusty, frozen top surfaces and leave a smooth corduroy pattern. A track setter impresses parallel tracks for cross country skis.

The tracked ATV is more ideal for grooming, he said. The transmission is geared low to give him more torque at lower speeds when the average grooming speed is around 5 mph. The dependable ATV and new groomer is the first step in developing a wider volunteer grooming corps, he said.

"The Friends of the Iron Belle Trail have been very good to work with and the groomer purchase was really good support," Ahnen said.

Ahnen's knack for maintaining the old snowmobile through mechanical issues, while also taking responsibility for borrowed grooming equipment from friends, has made the work somewhat of a solo job along with a few friends. If there were poor conditions, he said he couldn't expect other drivers to use the machine if it meant they could get marooned on the trail if it broke down.

"Having really good conditions all the time would be the goal," Ahnen said. "We'd like to get some more people involved, and having better equipment will certainly help with that."

Wolverine has a volunteer base of nearly 40 people who perform grooming and other responsibilities. The Iron Belle Trail is relatively newer and the summer and winter volunteer base continues to grow.

The volunteers at Wolverine have all types of grooming equipment to work with that were purchased with donations, Ahnen said. He said Dennis Spaete, president of Wolverine, taught him the basics and then after that "It's a little bit of learning as you go."

Ahnen is pretty busy at Wolverine but said he's always thought it was important to groom the Iron Belle Trail for presenting ideal trail characteristics for beginner skiers. Wolverine, along with some other area trail systems can challenge the experienced skiers with hills and turns but that can sometimes be scary to beginner skiers, he said.

"The beginner can go out there and learn how to do it on the Iron Belle and then advance to where there's a little more challenging terrain," Ahnen said. "It's kind of intimidating when you first start and there are a lot of people watching you and there is a lot of hard terrain with hills and corners. The Iron Belle is straight as an arrow and it's pretty flat so it's a great place to learn how to do it."

The pandemic environment this year will likely mean fewer or none of the large groups and ski teams that frequent area trail systems here all winter, he said. But there might be even more people coming to the trails as individuals and families seeking the relative isolation of the skiing and snowshoeing activities.

"I'm not approaching anything different this year," Ahnen said. "It's kind of hard to tell what is going to happen with it to be honest. These people might even be more apt to get out and do something like that. There could be an increase in traffic for all I know."

The local people who like to ski may also increase their daily use of Active Backwoods Retreat (ABR), Wolverine and the Iron Belle, he said.

"I'm a lifelong cross country skier and I enjoy the health benefits of being outside," Ahnen said. "Cross country skiing gives people a lot of pleasure and it's something that pretty much anyone can do."