December 2nd, 2006
Video of Dedication 5.7 MB download
Video of Dedication 1.5 MB download (for modem users)
November 17, 2006
Letter from GMNC President Joe Ramey:
Some of you already know, but after a long, extensive, and exhausting search we have a new snowcat grooming machine! It is a beauty, a brand new PistenBully 100Nordic with an 11 foot plow and 10 foot tiller, and double independent track setters, and an internal heater to pre-warm the engine and hydraulics. This machine will change Grand Mesa cross-country skiing forever. With proper care, this machine could provide excellent Grand Mesa grooming for two decades or more!
If you want to see this new machine, it will be delivered to Skyway Monday, November 20th at around 10AM. And we will have a dedication ceremony between the first races of the season on December 2nd at Skyway.
Special thanks to the PistenBully dealer in Grand Junction: Kassbohrer All Terrain Vehicles Inc. Kassbohrer has worked with us for over a year to find this machine, and gave us the Xenon lights and heated windshield wipers for free, and is providing on-snow training next
week for our groomers. Sam Trafton, one of their sales reps, will be joining us this year on the trails and races.
This amazing gift was made possible by a very generous grant from the Jean Thomas Lambert Foundation. But the costs of running this machine will have a big impact on our little budget. Associated snowcat costs will include: transport up and down the Mesa, fuel costs of 2.5 gallons of deisel per hour requiring a fuel tank rental, annual maintenance expected to be around $3000 or more, annual insurance
costs of $3000, and we are afraid there could be repair costs. Then we have to store the snowcat somewhere off the Mesa in the warm off-season, to include some kind of covering...either a canvas custom cover or some kind of shed.
I tell you all of this because our membership dues of $25/$40 don't come anywhere near covering these new costs. Your tax deductible gifts are needed now more than ever before.
Please come up on Monday, and again Saturday December 2nd, to celebrate a new era of cross country skiing in western Colorado.
Congratulations members!
GMNC President, Joe Ramey, presents token of appreciation from all skiers to Tom Lambert, Board Member of the Jean Thomas Lambert Foundation
Skiers express their appreciation
