When you’re gliding along smooth, firm ski tracks on top of Grand Mesa, it’s easy to forget that someone else played a big part in making your high-quality cross-country skiing experience possible.
The Grand Mesa Nordic Council (GMNC), a community-based nonprofit organization, grooms and maintains the mesa-top trail system at Skyway, County Line, and Ward Lake. Add up the distance of all the trails in the system, and you come up with 32.4 miles (54 kilometers) of groomed Nordic skiing fun. Difficulty varies among trails, but there’s enough terrain to accommodate all levels of skiers, from beginners to experts.
A basic trail map is available at http://www.gmnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/GMNC-Map-2003-Adless-2.pdf.
“I've lived and skied in areas all over the world, and I’ve found no other place that can match the Grand Mesa,” says Christie Aschwanden, who is in her third year as president of the Nordic Council. “I love that the GMNC is an inclusive, community-based organization run almost entirely by volunteer power. We get our funding from members, and our motto has always been to encourage donations via the carrot, not the stick. It’s satisfying to see how many people choose to give beyond our nominal membership fees.”
Trail grooming is funded and performed entirely by the Nordic Council, under a permit from the U.S. Forest Service. Nordic Council volunteers oversee races and learn-to-ski programs, raise funds through memberships and grants, and take care of other details to ensure that the trails are well-groomed throughout the winter. The council employs an operations manager and two groomers who are on the trails almost daily.
Grand Mesa Nordic Council trails are growing in popularity; parking lots at Skyway and County Line are often near capacity on weekends. Use of the trails is free, but users are encouraged to either leave a monetary donation in designated boxes at the trailheads or to join the council. Individual memberships are $45 per season, and family memberships are $75. Additional levels of financial support are available. All money from memberships goes toward paying groomers and covering the costs associated with keeping the trails groomed and in good shape for skiing.
“The recession has hit our communities hard, yet our membership numbers rose to 757 paid members last year. We hope to top that this year,” Aschwanden says.
The Nordic Council has grown and evolved since its founding in 1990.
“In the beginning, we groomed trails with a single volunteer on a snowmobile,” Ashwanden says. “But our members tell us they want more grooming, and over the years we’ve expanded the frequency of our grooming operations. Due to a very generous grant from the Jean Thomas Lambert Foundation, we were able to purchase a Pisten Bully snowcat a few years ago, and that has raised the quality of our grooming substantially. Hiring the operations manager was the next step, which has allowed us to improve the quality and quantity of grooming. Having an ops manager has also enabled us to become more responsive to our members’ feedback.”
Most of the operations manager’s position is funded this year by a grant from the Grand Junction REI store, and the Nordic Council is working on fund-raising efforts to sustain the position. In addition, the council is working to raise funds to maintain its high-quality grooming equipment.
“Our budget last year topped $57,000 and nearly all of that money went toward grooming,” Aschwanden says. “The Lambert Foundation grant that allowed us to purchase our snowcat also provided funds to run the machine for several years. That money is now gone, and we’re facing a deficit in our operations fund that we’ll need to make up through member support.”
“We are hoping to continue to operate at our current level, but this will require more members stepping up to increase their contributions. We hope to solicit some legacy partnerships, and we expect that some of our members will choose to boost their yearly donation,” she says.
The Nordic Council has ambitious plans not only for trails, but for on-mountain facilities to improve the experience for skiers.
“We have been working with the U.S. Forest Service for many years now to open a new trail at Skyway/County Line. We hope that the trail will finally be in place in the next year or so. We’ve also increased the number of events over the past couple of years. We now offer adult ski lessons (group and private), and we’ve added a sprint race and some kids’ races to our schedule. Last year we had a full-moon bonfire party to celebrate our 20-year anniversary, and we have another event like that scheduled for December 18,” Aschwanden says.
“Our next big goal is a parking lot expansion, new restrooms, and a small warming hut at County Line. It’s a costly project, but the U.S. Forest Service and Mesa and Delta counties have been very supportive, and together we’re working toward raising the funds to make it happen.”
For more information about the Grand Mesa Nordic Council, visit http://www.gmnc.org/. An online membership form is available at http://www.gmnc.org/grand-mesa-nordic-council-membership-application/. Anyone with specific questions about the Nordic Council or its operations can reach Aschwanden at http://www.blogger.com/grandmesanordic@gmail.com or Operations Manager Doug Conant at http://www.blogger.com/gmnordic@gmail.com (970-261-2392).
Douglas B. May, CFA, is President of May-Investments, LLC and author of Investment Heresies .
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