StadiumCam at GPRA

The Mat-Su Ski Club is hiring a Race Director and Chief Timer for the 2019/20 ski season. (Details here)

These positions require experience with Nordic ski racing management.

The individuals hired will manage and time two weekends(Friday and Saturday) of High School races and three of the Mat-Su Ski Club's Northern Lights Series races on Sundays. Race dates are January 10, 11, 12, and 26 and February 7, 8, and 16.

Please contact us at admin@matsuski.org if you are interested.

The Mat-Su Ski Club's newly-acquired 2006 PistenBully 100 has arrived. We are using it to groom at Independence Mine at Hatcher Pass. As the snowline moves down from the alpine, so will the PB. It will spend most of the winter at GPRA. Besides helping prevent our (volunteer) groomers from going insane circling the trails 40 times on our old equipment after huge snowfalls, the PB should bring a marked improvement to grooming quality at GPRA.

Years of paid Club memberships,  Junior Nordic participation fees, and your generous donations made this possible.

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Volunteer Groomers Wanted!

Contact us if you have 3 or 4 late or very late evening hours, once a week, and want to help groom the trails.

Biathlon Range Regulations

A comment period is open until November 15, 2019 concerning the Alaska Dept. of Natural Resources proposal to change regulations in order to allow a biathlon range at GPRA.
The change is intended to allow only 22 caliber rifles using low-power ammunition, and only on a designated range, at designated times, and only with a range safety officer present.
The Mat-Su Ski Club supports the change.
More information at http://notice.alaska.gov/195671

The Club was busy last summer - thanks to the volunteers.

They modified the Comp Loops and the Matanuska Loop to allow 7.5 km homologated races at GPRA.

Built an access trail, with one bridge, that should allow for much more efficient and frequent grooming of the Flattop Trail.

Installed a flagpole, removed some giant rocks from the trails that threatened our equipment, improved drainage on the trails, built  more portable fencing, and installed some permanent fencing.

Volunteers also spread grass seed, repaired bridge approaches with rockwork and bucket-hauled fill, and stabilized erosion zones.

Thank You Volunteers for the GPRA ski trail work this summer and fall!

And thanks to the sponsors that supported the work.

Recap of 2018-2019 Grooming of Nordic ski trails.

The 2018-19 grooming season lasted 197 days. (Compared to 226 days last season)

Our grooming season started on Oct 29th, 2018 at both Independence Mine and GPRA; and ended on May 14th, 2019 back at Independence Mine. We would have continued grooming for another week or two, but the State came up and plowed the snow away.

At Independence Mine we groomed on 11 fall days and 3 spring days; 112 hours of grooming (not including 27 hours of trail prep and equipment shuttling). (Compared to 21 fall and 9 spring grooming events last season)

At Archangel Road we groomed on 50 days, during a 151-day period;  237 hours of grooming. (Compared to 40 grooming events over 183 days last season)

At GPRA and Mountain Streams we groomed on 47 days, during a 138-day period; 380 hours of grooming. (Compared to 58 grooming events over 153 days last season)

At the Matanuska Moose Range we groomed on 40 days, over a 101-day period; 75 hours of grooming.  (Compared to 35 grooming events over 102 days last season)

About 800 Mat-Su Ski Club volunteer hours went into grooming and machine maintenance during the 2018-2019 Nordic ski season. (Compared to about 900 hours last ski season)

THANK YOU GROOMERS!