Volunteer News
Volunteer Trails Day Cancelled
| Hi friends, |
| The Volunteer Trails Day for this Saturday,October 9th has been cancelled. The trails are in great shape thanks to all the amazing volunteers this summer that helped clean up and clear debris to make way for snow cover. If you happen to take a walk on the trails to enjoy the fall colors, keep an eye out for rocks or debris and toss it aside. After all, a smooth ski trail is a happy ski trail! |
| A friendly reminder to dog owners – please be considerate to fellow trail friends and other dogs by keeping your pet leashed. |
The Piston Bulley has new belts!
Thanks to a talented group of volunteers, the Piston Bulley now has new rubber belts and is ready to make its mark on the trails. A sunny day was much appreciated and certainly aided in a dry place to work as well as bringing out smiling faces. The Sunday volunteers are no longer needed as this job was completed much faster than anticipated. To those who volunteered and were not needed, thank you for offering your time. Think Snow!!
The Pisten Bulley needs our help!
New Dates to fix the Piston Bulley!
| On Saturday and Sunday, August 28th and 29th at Mark Strabel’s house on Waldo Reed off of Edgerton Parks, adjacent to GPRA, from 9AM to 5ish. We would like a team of about 3-4 people from 9am – 1pm and 1pm to 5pm each day – CLICK HERE to sign up to help. We hope to get it all done on Saturday and ask for Sunday volunteers as a backup in case the project runs longer than expected. We are going to replace six worn-out track belts on our PistenBulley. This entails unbolting 3 track belts on each side and installing new track belts. We will also reverse the drive sprockets. Tools needed if you have them: Impact drivers with deep well metric sockets 14, 15, 16 and 17 mm as well as hand held propane troches for softening up locktite on the bolts. The Club will provide pizza and sodas and some tools. Pizza will be served around 12:30 each day for anyone that joins us. |
Volunteer Opportunities in August
Thursday evening August Trail Work Parties at GPRA!*
We will gather on some Thursday evenings in August at the ski club shed at GPRA to do trail work, from 6:30 to 8:30. CLICK HERE to sign up. Directions to the work sites will be posted on the shed for late arrivals. Mostly rock tossing, shoveling, raking, brush lopping, tree planting. Bring work gloves, and maybe a shovel or loppers or bow rake.
Contact info@matsuski.org if you have questions.
The Blue Crew needs You!
Be the Blue Crew! Volunteer for the Icicle Double next weekend, Saturday December 26th – Sunday December 27th. We need you, on skis or not, experienced or not!
Please click on the link to the Sign Up Genius and come out for a great day of ski fun and competition.
Final Ski Rental for Junior Nordics
November 12th is the last chance to pick up ski gear for the upcoming Junior Nordics season! Volunteers will be at the shed at GPRA at 5:30 ready to size gear, help with the necessary rental paperwork, and accept payment for a short time only. Please sign up here to let us know you are coming. If you want to volunteer during this event, please contact Allison Fry at info@matsuski.org.
*Skis and poles can be rented through Mat-Su Ski Club for $50 a pair. This includes skis with bindings and poles. We accept cash, checks, and cards, however cash or check are preferred (the card reader isn’t Alaskan enough to work consistently in the cold!).
*A refundable ski and pole deposit of $150 per pair of skis is required at time of rental. Please bring a separate check with you for this deposit. The check should be post-dated for April 17th, 2021.
It’s also important to note that Backcountry Bike & Ski will be set up in the parking lot of their store in downtown Palmer to rent boots and sell wax kits to Junior Nordics families on October 31st at 12:00-3:00 PM. They will be accepting cash, card, and check, but will not have change, so please bring exact change. The price of boot rental is $41.20 and wax kits will be sold for $46.35.
Saturday Oct 10, 10am – 2pm GPRA work party
Its that time of year again! Volunteers needed to stroll the trails at GPRA getting them ready for winter.
On Saturday, October 10th; from 10am to 2pm we will have a work party at GPRA. Meet in the GPRA parking lot at 10am.
Mostly the Sisyphean job of tossing rocks of off the Denali trail. There will also be an opportunity to do a little shovel, rake, and bucket work where we reset a culvert. Grass seed will be spread locally.. We need to fix a few moose-vandalized U-board hangers with some dowels and glue. Finally, a posthole digger patrol will walk the Flattop, standing back up signs dragged out of their postholes by a mysterious force.
Flattop Loop expansion in progress
Work has started on completing the Flattop Loop, so that it will be a true loop, as originally planned. You can help. May is a great season for clearing the devilsclub, alders, and all the rest – before the new growth obscures everything. Bring a lopper to cut the remaining devils club, roses, and other little bushes. or just a pair of devils club-proof gloves and toss the already cut pieces off the trail.
You can help with your own virtual work party. Starting from the bottom of Eska, walk out the Flattop and look for the very obvious lines of pink flagging and the survey stakes with arrows and instructions on them for the three in-progress trail segments: O oscar, B bravo, and D delta. Here is a map of the work areas.
A pair of devilsclub-proof gloves is all you need – there are lots of already cut stalks to toss off the trail alignment. Bring a lopper too if you want, there are always more stalks yet to be cut.
Contact us if you want to help, or just head out on your own. It is a nice walk this time of year and even if you do only a tiny bit of work, it will help.
Thanks to Volunteer Groomers!
Your volunteer groomers were busy in February:
53 hours at Independence Mine, 17 hours at Archangel Road, 32 hours in the Moose Range, and 91 hours of grooming at GPRA. They groomed trails on 24 days last month.
Volunteers Needed: Sunday, February 2nd for Besh Cup 5 & 6 Races
Due to cold weather in Fairbanks, Besh 5 and 6 have moved to Southcentral. MSSC is looking for volunteers for Sunday February 2nd. Approximate times will be 10am to 3pm (depending on job and start time).
If you have time this weekend, please sign up.
The ConocoPhillips Besh Cup Race Series is the premier cross country skiing competition series in Alaska. Each of the six races in the series draws approximately 300 entries from all parts of the state.
Results in Besh Cup races are used to select the Alaska Teams to the United States Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) Junior Olympic National Championships (JO’s), as well as the biennial, international Arctic Winter Games (AWG).