It's officially spring!

Well spring has officially arrived as of Thursday the 20th..of course we all know spring means different things in the our area.  Anything from beautiful warm blue bird days to cold snowy spring storms..let's keep our fingers crossed the snow stays up high and we can start really thawing out in the valley.  We have seen some pretty nice days, a little cool, but the sunshine has been fantastic.  It is really starting to melt the snow around the course and it is creating an impossible situation with the cross country track and our capabilities to keep it groomed.  That being said, please stay just adjacent to the track if you are skate skiing on the hard, early morning conditions. 

The snow melt on the greens is happening in earnest and we are out this weekend monitoring them and putting out more black sand.  We do have some concerns with a few greens and ice build up.  The ground is still frozen solid and with all the moisture we got in February some areas have significant ice and impedes the surface drainage on some greens.  We are being pro-active by carving out drainage areas around the greens and adding more black sand to facilitate the melt and give it some place to go.  We will be breaking up any ice areas and removing the ice by hand where it is overly concerning.  This could be a year where we do a lot of seeding and sodding due to ice damage in fairways and around greens.  We will all keep our fingers crossed and continue to be pro active with respect to the greens.

There are a couple of coyotes that have been frequenting the area around #3 and #4, must be a carcass somewhere getting their attention.  In addition, the mother moose that has been working it's way around the property with her little one is now in the #4, #7 area.  We are giving them as much room as we can as we travel around the course and address the greens.

Please get out and enjoy the property..we only have one more week before we close the course and cross country track on April 1st.  We will being bringing on staff and worknig around the property, cleaning up from a long winter starting then.

Coyote #3

Monday snow

Good afternoon.  We are headed out to groom the track again.  We are getting a little bit of a late start today due to some mechanical issues with the snowmobile.  We ended up with about 5" from yesterdays storm and certainly some areas that got blown in pretty hard.  We will be starting some more work on the greens over the next week to facilitate some snow melt, so the track will be getting used for our travels around the course.  It should firm up pretty well as we are supposed to get down into the single digits tonight. 

Based on our snow depths right now we have double the snow on the course versus what we had last year at this same time.  I feel like we are about 2 weeks later than last year on our snow melt, hopefully this won't translate into later opening dates.  April can certainly go either way with temperatures and moisture.  We are hoping for moderate temperatures for a slow, steady melt from here on out.

I spotted an injured deer on the property yesterday, but was unable to see where it was headed.  It was headed down #18/driving range area last I saw it.  Please feel free to contact the club if you spot any injured animals that need to addressed by Wy Game and Fish.  We certainly don't want to see any animals suffering around the property.

Have a great day!

Andy

First signs of spring...

There are all kinds of signs that spring is coming around the area...snow is certainly starting to recede, willows are getting some color, the robins have been around for several weeks, but today I spotted the first two mountain bluebirds (MBB's) of the season.  That, for me anyway, is a refreshing sign that we are turning the corner towards warmer weather.  The male mountain bluebirds, which have the striking powder blue color, show up 2-4 weeks prior to the females and begin looking for places to nest.  We have 12-14 habitable MMB boxes on the course, we will be doing an inventory of how they wintered and make sure we have 16 ready to go by April 1st.  We checked and cleaned all of them in the fall and had 10 active boxes, with 4-6 being used by MBB's and the others being inhabited by swallows.  Even though the holes in the boxes were sized to spec from Audubon Int'l recommendations for MBB's the swallows continue to take up residence.  It is an exciting time as we transition from winter to spring and I for one am ready to see some grass...even if it is dormant for another several weeks.

All that being said we may get a little snow tomorrow, NWS calling for a couple of inches.  If that happens we will groom the track again.  We ended up with 1-2" on Friday night so we groomed the track Saturday morning and it was just enough snow to create a good surface for both traditional and skate skiing.  Have a great week.

Andy 

Friday March 14

The sun couldn't have come at a better time.  We've finally broken out of our cloudy, wet pattern that lasted throughout February and into early March.  The snow on the course has really "set up" with the cold night time temperatures and cool days. 

It has been difficult to keep the track in good enough shape to skate ski and it seems that visitors are ignoring our signage and venturing all over the course as the snow has been hard in the mornings.  We are please asking that everyone restrict travels to the track.  This time of the year we are not concerned about damaging turf but more concerned about wildlife interaction and safety issues that come with leaving the track and skiing in areas that aren't marked.  There are so many ditches, ponds, bunkers and other hazards that get "soft" before the flats and can be dangerous to skiers that leave the track.  In addition, the hooved animals will break through the hard snow in their travels.  I recently read an article published concerning a moose that had to be put down because it got spooked, took off running and broke a front leg in similar hard snow conditions.  The picture below is of a mom moose and her yearling laying on #6 tee box today.  The cross country track is well away from this area and keeps the possibility of a negative interaction to a minimum.  This particular pair has been moving around the course and mom's with young are potentially the most dangerous animal you can encounter this time of the year.  Please stay safe and continue to use the property responsibly.  If we get the couple of inches they are predicting tonight we will groom the track tomorrow morning so it will be in shape for skate skiing as well as setting a track.

Mom and young on #6 tee box,  Teewinot in the background.

 

More rain......ugghhhhh

Looks like our warm end to winter is going to continue as they are predicting as much as 1/2" of rain between this afternoon and Tuesday.  It has created an interesting snow pack on the golf course and made grooming the track quite an adventure.  The snow pack continues to go pretty quickly and I suspect if we stay above freezing and get all rain the depths on the course will be under a foot by the end of next week.  Normally we would stop grooming the track and close the course by April 1st to begin our spring maintenance but that may happen sooner this year looking at the forecast.  We will remove our cross country signs and stakes once we make the decision to close the course to public traffic, so get out and enjoy while the opportunity presents itself. 

We are ramping up our hiring efforts for the summer season and preparing to start spring projects.  We will be rebuilding several of our walk bridges this spring, as well as, staining the bridge railings that were re-built last year.  If time allows we will also begin rebuilding some of the stairs on the par 3's, specifically #3 and #6.  It's hard to start thinking about those kinds of things with snow still on the ground but as the weather seems to be trending warmer a little earlier than normal we need to be prepared for the possibility of an earlier "spring".  I hope everyone is having a great winter and we can't wait to start putting back together the golf course for a great summer season!

March 5th

The track will get groomed again today..should be finished by noon.  We ended up getting 12" of snow on Saturday and another 3-4" last night.  We finished blowing our greens off just in time to get all that snow.  Looks like we will be working on them again next week depending on what mother nature has in store for us.  Have a great day.