Spring is here and it would appear that the season has started to come to an end! I hope everyone was able to get out and get a few more kilometers of skiing or snowshoeing in over the past few weeks.
As of the end of this week the grooming crew will begin the business of transitioning the area from skiing and snowshoeing to spring and summer uses. If you plan to visit the area next week just be aware that gates that have been closed all winter may be open. As such, the trails will probably no longer be groomed and may have foot prints or tire tracks in them where there is still snow.
FYI, I recently was made aware that the annual Coeur d’Alene Earth day event is going to take place on April 23rd. What I didn’t realize was the deadline for letting the organizers know that the club would want a booth is March 23rd, (i.e., tomorrow). Unfortunately, based on my inquiry to the board no one, including myself, was available to take the lead and an application has not been sent in. So, I am asking if any of you members would be willing to make the contact, by tomorrow, and take the lead at covering a booth for the club. If so please let me know and I will forward you the message Nancy Lewis sent me. The application form may be an attachment to the message. If you are interested, please call “Charlene Beach (listed as a member of the event planning team)” @ 208 769-2315” by tomorrow. You should let them know the application will be in the mail soon.
The agenda for the final meeting of the season will be the development of a summer activities list. Hopefully, since it was mentioned at the March meeting that we would be making the list everyone has been thinking about ideas. All ideas are welcome. So come prepared with ideas like float trips, hiking or biking.
Finally, for the April meeting it was decided that we would meet for pizza and beer, or soda pop. In the past we have held the meeting at the Pizza Factory. But to make sure of where we will meet it will be discussed at the board meeting coming up next Tuesday (the 29th) and a message be will sent out and posted on the WEB with the details on location and time. Be sure to check for the follow up message later next week.

Since we are getting close to the end of the season it is time again to get ready for the I-du-ski and snowshoe award presentations. As always the March club meeting has served as the club’s awards presentation and Roberta Truscott has taken the lead at tallying accomplishments and preparing certificates. Hopefully everyone has been keeping track of your skiing and snowshoeing accomplishments and are ready to get them to Roberta.
In order for there to be enough time to tally accomplishments and complete certificates before next week’s meeting please email them to her by Friday, February 25th. Send them to: glenn.truscott@gmail.com. If you do not have the capability to scan and/or email documents, you can drop them off at Truscott’s residence at 3774 N Sutters Way, CDA 83815, or as a last resort bring them with you to the meeting. Please try to get your accomplishments to Roberta by no later than the February 28th .
The Ski area has finally received a little more snow this week, and hopefully there is more on the way. If we’re lucky skiing and snowshoeing conditions will hang in there for a few more weeks. I encourage you to take advantage of it as long as a you can.
As far as the trail grooming conditions go most of the ski trails are cleared and are being groomed on a regular weekly schedule. The exceptions include the last quarter mile or so of Elderberry and all of Eagle Run. From reports skiing these routes is possible but due to trees that have only been partially cleared it can be a challenging experience. Since the end of the season is rapidly approaching the decision was made to hold off on finishing the clearing of these trails until we can drive them with a vehicle other than a snowmobile.
Finally, we will still be meeting at the same location (Community United Methodist Church). The meeting is Tuesday, March 1st and will start at 7:00 PM. Hope you all can make it! PS – please remember to bring your masks and please wear them properly (i.e., cover your nose and mouth) while in the building. We appreciate being allowed to use the church facility at no cost to the club. So we want to continue abiding by their safety requirements.

Greetings! Nearly half the winter season is gone and quite the season it’s been. Storms that brought down lots of trees, and snow the piles up then fades away. All said and done, it still hasn’t been too bad for winter sports. A little slick perhaps!
We were able to finally pull off the Best Hand event. The weather couldn’t have been better, as it turned out to be a nice day. No Rain, No wind and a pleasant temperature. Only issue, trails were a little faster than a lot of folks would have preferred. The event its self was very successful, around 40 skiers and snowshoers participated and the club was able to add some funding to the trail and facility maintenance program. I want to reiterate my thanks to all those who participated and helped in making the day a success.
Most of you have probably seen the grooming reports that Geoff has put out. If not, progress is being made on getting the trails in shape again. But there is a lot of down trees to remove before everything can be routinely groomed again. At least it was possible to get the inner loop and Loose Moose cleared and ready for the Best Hand event. If you are planning to use Elderberry or Eagle run in the near future, just be aware that you may run into a few down trees. Likewise, if you want to head out towards Rose Saddle you may encounter a few in the last mile or so.
Some windfall clearing has been accomplished on the snowshoe trails. But users should expect to run into some trees that haven’t been removed yet. From what I hear, unless there are recently fallen trees, it is possible to get over or around most of the windfalls that haven’t been removed yet.
If anyone wants to help out, let Goeff know so he can work you into the weekly plans. Otherwise, the groomer gang will keep hammering away at it till we catch up.
Since the Best Hand event was delayed, the calendar of events has been pushed a bit closer together. As a reminder, Rock Soup is scheduled for February 5th. Guess what, that’s next Saturday! Hope a lot of you can make it. The board members will try to have the cooking stoves and pots ready to go for whatever ingredients folks want to add to the soup/s. For those who want to stick with vegetable soup only, there will be a pot dedicated to vegetables only. Since the monthly club meeting is this coming Tuesday (February 1st) It gives us an opportunity to talk about the plan for the event in advance. Hope to see you there!
The board is still looking for ideas for other outing ideas for February and/or March. If anyone would like scheduled one let a member know. We’ll do our part to get the word out so it can happen.
As a reminder there may still be a chance to sign up for the Palouse Divide weekend. If you haven’t already contacted her, give Marty McCain a call @ 208 819 0403 or see her at the club meeting on Tuesday.
For the presentation this month, Nancy and Greg Lewis volunteered to give us a show about Alaska. Sounds like it might be very interesting. Hope everyone can make.

See You Tuesday Night at 7.

Happy New Year! Hope everyone is still in good health.

We finally got snow and a lot of it. If you haven’t ventured out yet due to the cold temperatures, you’re missing a winter wonderland up at 4th of July. Granted its cold but dressing up to beat it is worth the effort. It may be some of the best conditions there could be for skiing and snowshoeing. Deep fine powder, and it’s possible to stay pretty dry. The only draw back at the moment is the snow is so powdery the conditions are not very good for grooming. But as of this week the inner loop ski trails were packed down with the snow machines, so when temps warm up, they will be ready for grooming. Goeff will be leading the charge to catch up with packing and grooming as conditions prevail.

The groomer gang has also been busy clearing down trees off the trails. The weight of the snow has knocked down quite a few and blocked the trails. There is still a lot of work to do, but the gang got the inner loop ski trails open this week and will be working on the others in the near future. FYI – in case you want to ski it, Loose Moose didn’t have any down trees but does have a lot of smaller trees bent down over it. Hopefully when the snow melts some of them will pop up again. The gang will be going through with saws soon, for those that don’t pop back up.
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If you hadn’t put it on your calendar yet the BEST HAND FUN SKI and SNOWSHOE event is scheduled for the January 8th, or one week from New Year’s Day. For those that may not be familiar with the event, the purpose is the clubs annual fund raiser to help cover the cost of maintaining the facilities at 4th of July and keeping the trails groomed and cleared of down trees. More information about this event is posted on the WEB site, so encourage your friends to check it out and join us. As a reminder if you would like to help out with registration of handing out cards and didn’t sign up at the last club meeting, see Nancy Lewis at this week’s club meeting. Also, if you have anything you would like to donate for a prize bring it with you on the 8th and we gather them up at the registration tent.

Finally, we will be meeting this month at the same location as last month (Community United Methodist Church). The meeting is Tuesday, January 4th and will start at 7:00 PM. Hope you all can make it! PS – please bring your masks and please wear them properly (i.e., cover your nose and mouth) while in the building. The Church is allowing us to use the facility at no charge, but they do require all of us to adhere to their mask rules. We’re afraid that if they see our members not complying, we will be asked to stop using the building.

Based on members responses from the October Newsletter inquiry, the board decided that club meetings will begin again in December! Regardless of whether or not you responded we hope that folks will consider attending.
The meeting will be held at a new location this season. Thanks to the efforts of Greg and Nancy Lewis they discovered that the church they attend would be happy to host our meetings. It is the “Community United Methodist Church” which is located at the intersection of Hanley and Ramsey in Coeur d’Alene (Address: 1470 W Hanley). The church will not charge the club anything for use, but the board agreed we should make a one-time donation to show our gratitude. As in past years, meetings will be held on the first Tuesday of the month. For December that is 12/7/21, meeting will start at 7:00 PM. Goeff and Skip have agreed to put on their presentation for being prepared, “Who’s Got the Best Kit” challeenge.
Due to the fact that COVID is still with us, and unfortunately probably will continue to be, the board did agree that it will be necessary to still take precautions. The church is large enough to allow people to maintain social distancing, and the church does require folks to wear masks. So please bring your masks with you.
The board hasn’t seen any responses to the October inquiry regarding ideas for generating a list of club skiing or snowshoe activities for the season. The subject will be brought up again at the first meeting, so if you have ideas be prepared to bring them up. As of now the board agreed that the club should put on the Poker Run and Rock Soup, so there may be a list at the meeting for volunteers to help out with passing out cards, etc.
A couple of other items that the board was reminded of that take place annually include: ski/snowshoe swapping and cookies for the Idaho Transportation Dept (IDT) plow truck drivers. If you have any old equipment that you want to get rid of, bring it to any of the future meetings. Perhaps someone else is looking for equipment and will take it off your hands. Every year, to thank them for keeping the parking lot open the club gives a basket of cookies or treats to the guys from IDT. We try to deliver the basket in December as a reminder about the parking lot. So, if you like to bake cookies bring some to next week’s meeting so we can get the basket ready to go! Thanks in advance for contributing.
If you’ve already decided to stick with the club and have signed in to the WEB site and renewed your membership the board wants to thank you. If you haven’t got around to it yet, we would encourage you to do so as soon as you can! The sooner your renewals are taken care of, the earlier a membership list for the year can be completed. Trying to renew at club meetings is not a good option. Please renew and pay dues via the WEB site. Using the WEB site is much more efficient and it makes it a lot easier to enter information into the membership list.
Last but not least, winter will get here sooner or later. Based on appearances, it looks like later. But let’s start hoping for some snow and soon. There was about three inches up on Eagle Run and the Twisted Klister a couple of days ago. But I have a feeling the warm temperatures we’ve had has caused abit of melting to occur. If anyone has any influence with Old Man Winter or Jack Frost, encourage to help us out.
​See you at the club meeting December 7th. 7PM, Community Untied Methodist Church.

As you may have noticed the weather is beginning to change. With any luck it is the beginning of a good skiing and snowshoeing season.
The board got together two weeks ago and began the discussions regarding what the club should do this season. The major issues discussed included: 1. Should club meetings be held again? and 2. What events should the club attempt to put on? Since it seems clear that COVID is still going to be with us for the long term, the members of the board had a variety of opinions on what should be done. So, to make a long story short it was decided it would be useful to put the question to the membership (i.e. Would you like to see the club start holding monthly meetings again?).
The boards’ objective is to make a decision during the November board meeting based on the number of positive responses received from members. If atleast 20 folks indicate that they would be interested getting together again we would find a venue to meet again on the first Tuesday of the month starting in December.
If the club were to start holding meetings again, the board agreed that the venue would need to be large enough to allow for social distancing. It was also agreed that use of masks would be optional, but highly recommended. It is our hope that most folks attending a Nordic Club Meeting would have already been vaccinated, and would feel comfortable enough to get together again.
If you would like to see the club start meeting again this season, please let us know before November 17th. Current club members can send a response to the club email address: pnc12@emaildodo.com, or leave a comment on the WEB page.
FYI – In the event there is enough interest, Greg Lewis has already checked and may have already gotten the go ahead for the club to meet at their church.

Regarding winter events, the board has agreed that the club should hold the Poker Run and Rock Soup again this season. It was also agreed that based on past experience the use of the Panhandle Hut during these events defeats the purpose of social distancing. To solve this problem, a portable open-air tent will probably be put into use this year for registrations, etc. A warming fire in the stove will still be maintained so folks can use the hut to warm up if they feel comfortable doing so.
The board would also like to invite the members to submit ideas for other events this season. It may still be too soon to get back into weekend trips to places like Windthrop, but there may be folks that would be happy to get together for local one day excursions. Please, if you have ideas let the board know. Again, send your responses to the club email address or leave comments on the WEB page.
As reminder, since it is the beginning of another season the need for folks to renew their membership or join the club is critical to supporting the maintenance of the trails and facilities at 4th of July recreation area. I want to thank everyone who stuck with the club in 2020 in spite of COVID and hope you will renew your membership in 2021. Randy, wanted a reminder to be included in this newsletter that
membership renewals, or joining for the first time, can be done through the WEB site. This also includes the ability to submit dues. Please sign in and take care of this as soon as you can, so that the membership list for the year can be completed as early as possible. Thanks again for your support!
PS – You may have already seen a message sent out by Goeff recently looking for volunteers to get the grooming equipment sheds and snowshoe warming hut up. If you have the time 
As you may have noticed the weather is beginning to change. With any luck it is the beginning of a good skiing and snowshoeing season.