New trail grooming report system helps track Nordic skiing conditions

Valley ski trail users now have access to live grooming reports thanks to a new tracking system operated by the MatSu Ski Club, club officials announced at a meeting last month.

The new Nordic Pulse tracking program, which can be viewed on the club’s website, tracks grooming in real time via the grooming teams’ smartphones. If work is done in an area without a cell signal, the system updates as soon as the phone is back in range, officials said. Live grooming can be seen via a blinking red dot on the grooming report map.

Grooming reports on the website are also color coded and displayed over a map of the area. A green trail, for example, means it was groomed within the last 24 hours, while dark orange indicates it was last groomed four to six days ago. It also includes space for groomers, who are ski club volunteers, to share a photo and leave trail feedback.

That commenting feature will be familiar to users of the current region-wide SnowIO.com system. That site allows user and groomer-generated condition reports published in a feed, with the most recent update displayed at the top. Unlike that system, however, Nordic Pulse only allows posts by groomers using the app. The updates to specific areas are easier to find, club officials said, because they are linked via a map, instead of posted individually in a list. Volunteers groomers will also continue to also update SnowIO — at least for this year, club officials said at the meeting.

The new system also allows the club to notate the difficulty level of individual trails within the ski area systems. That should be especially useful for skiers who aren’t yet familiar with the area, said Marla Jakab, the club’s administrator.

“I have had so many emails from people that are either new to the area, or people that are just learning to cross-country ski,” she said. “And so what’s really neat about this is this map, if you actually visit each section, you can scroll down on each and you can look at a difficulty level just like a downhill ski resort area would have.”

Nordic Pulse is also being used this year by groomers at Kincaid and Hillside in Anchorage and Beach Lake in Chugiak.

Those live grooming reports join a host of other condition information on the site, including a plan for photos of both Archangel Road and Independence Mine posted by remote feed every two hours. The site also has links to temperature and snowfall reports at Independence Mine and Government Peak Recreation Area.

In addition to hitting the freshly groomed trails, skiers looking for an early season challenge can attend the first of the club’s annual ski races on Saturday, Nov. 12.

The first Race to the Outhouse event will be held from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and is open to all levels of skiers from beginners to olympic-level athletes, with both classic and freestyle race options. Race location is either Government Peak Recreation Area or Independence Mine in Hatcher Pass, and is dependent on snow conditions. Registration is free and will be held before the race from 9 to 9:30 a.m. The race is conducted with the Nordic Ski Club of Anchorage, which will be using it to test their new timing chip system.