So long as there's ample snow for cross-country skiing at Larch Hills, Buffy will continue making tracks.
Buffy is the nickname given to the Larch Hills Nordic Society's Prinoth Bison X groomer, which is in the midst of its first season of use after replacing the club's Piston Bully Edge 200 鈥� which had been used for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
"The old one was at the end of its useful life, meaning that we were having down time and repairs on these machines are really expensive," said Larch Hills' grooming co-ordinator George Jackson, who oversees a team of volunteers who run the tracksetter daily.
Manufactured in Canada, Buffy is a far more technologically advanced machine that has proven superior to the Piston Bully in a number of ways, a key one being the quality of the tracks it makes.
"The Classic tracks, they鈥檙e deeper, firmer and more consistently straight and easier to ski in, whereas with the old machine, the hardware was kind of worn out so the tracks were kind of wiggly and they weren鈥檛 so deep. So it鈥檚 a way nicer classic track," said Jackson. "The centre portion is your skate track and the skate track is superior in a few ways 鈥� It鈥檚 flatter, firmer and it has a鈥� specific structure to the track, it鈥檚 a real fine structure so it it鈥檚 a lot more pleasureable to skate ski."
Longtime Larch Hills volunteer and former groomer Blaine Carson confirmed this after having an opportunity to ride along with current volunteer Craig McBride.
"It鈥檚 an amazing machine, it鈥檚 got cameras and sensors and four track setters compared to three on the last one鈥�," said Carson. "When I started tracksetting 25 years ago, it was a 10 foot machine, it was 10-feet wide and you had to go around twice if you were setting skating. This one is 20-feet wide and you go around once and you鈥檝e got two-to-four classic lanes and you can have a skating lane in the middle."
Jackson said skier feedback about the quality of the tracks has also been positive, with some of the critical input coming from the groomers themselves.
"A pretty normal thing is to groom early in the morning and then try to get out and ski on your groomed tracks鈥� and then you take a look at your own grooming and see where you can make some improvements," said Jackson.
The new machine can also work slightly faster than the one it replaces while using much less fuel.
"The fuel consumption is noticeably better than our other machine," said Jackson. "It has a Tier 4 emission system so it burns real clean. You can have the engine running in a closed area and you can鈥檛 tell it鈥檚 running and it鈥檚 a diesel鈥� and it's considerably more fuel efficient, close to 30 per cent."
Prinoth provided the club with training for the new machine and continues to give ongoing support, which has also impressed Jackson.
"Folks in Calgary can log onto the computer and they can tell all the functions, all the operating parameters, how many hours put on it, fuel consumption they can see everything there and we can see it too," said Jackson. "They can do a complete diagnostic and if we have a one-off issue then we can talk to a mechanic, tell them the time and then they can look at their readout and see if there was a little fault code or error code at that time."
The Prinoth Bison was ordered last March after the society received a $250,000 gaming grant for its purchase. The remaining money for the $630,000 machine was funded with money the society saved specifically for the purchase.
Despite the warmer, wetter weather in Salmon Arm, ski conditions at Larch Hills have been excellent, said Jackson, who anticipates Buffy will be active on the trails for some time yet.
"The skiing in March has been phenomenal," said Jackson. "We don鈥檛 have as many skiers out as we鈥檇 like because they鈥檙e doing other things or they think the skiing is not good. but we plan to keep grooming as long as there鈥檚 decent snow conditions and we鈥檙e getting some skiers out."
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