Arena snow removal

[normandy_shores]

I have an outdoor arena, that is of course snowed over (I live in central British Columbia). This year has been particularly bad for freeze, snow, melt, rain, refreeze (ice). It’s mostly been a warm winter with a couple of very cold snaps.

I’m wondering about the feasibility of having a neighbour with a bobcat come over and remove snow from part of my arena (it’s 30m x 55x) so that portion will hopefully thaw and be usable sooner? Has anyone done this?

For now, I’ve kept a few figure 8 tracks in my ring somewhat groomed – not deep, but still soft snow for my horses’ barefoot tootsies. Can’t go in deep snow, as one horse has a chronic extensor tendon issue. As long as we have some snow cover the footing is decent enough I suppose…

[Plainandtall]

I don’t have an arena, but if you do, I’d have him put the removed snow in a place where you can reclaim any of the arena footing that was accidentally scraped off. I learned this lesson when my neighbor was kind enough to plow our driveway and the next spring I had some gravel piles in the grass.

[Hilary]

Yes, the problem is to make sure that he only takes the snow. Our gravel driveway gets rearranged every year because of a snowstorm before a freeze.

Depending on how deep the snow is you could just groom it, and ride on that.

What I find, though, is that if I do much riding or packing down of the snow on the arena, I love it mid winter b/c I can ride and curse it come spring because I have snowy/icy tracks where I had packed it down.

[normandy_shores]

When we bought this place this past summer, the ring has deep soft sand, close to a foot of it. I removed 80% of the footing so it’d be decent for dressage/jumping! Had enough sand to top up a friend’s ring, do a friend’s round pen, AND and whole brand new arena at the riding club And I still have a 4ft pile and piles of it banked against the short side at the far end. I’m not too worried about losing any!

What I’ve done so far is groomed a track with 2 circles and diagonals, and try to maintain it so it isn’t too packed down. I didn’t think about that being packed and hard and icy when it comes to melt time. Maybe next year, I’ll only use one end for riding through the winter, and then clear the other end come February for my early start.

Thanks for the insight Just trying to get going early enough to be able to actually compete in the first half of this season…

[Mallard]

If you have thaw/freeze/that/freeze cycles like we get here in Ontario, I would leave it alone!
The track where it has been driven/ridden on will freeze solid.
Even if it snows again, that ice will be still be there… waiting for you to kill yourself!
And yes… it is the very last stuff to thaw out in the spring.
Ask me how I know…
I don’t touch my ring until spring.

If we get at least 8" of packy snow, then I will go out into the hay field and ride … knowing that the next day those tracks will be frozen over … and deadly.

[Jim_in_PA]

When ploughing any area with “loose” materials, be it a driveway or an arena, it’s very important that the blade or bucket has skids to prevent the edge from actually digging into the “loose” materials. This does require leaving a small amount of snow behind, but it insures that stone and/or footing stays where it belongs.

[Eleanor]

Tthis is your first winter away from the wet coast. It is a whole different way to live and ride horses. I give the ponies Dec, Jan and part of Feb off. Start back up in mid Feb beginning of March. Days are longer it is warmer and nicer to ride in. I also only do road/fitting work the first 2-3 weeks it helps when you are waiting for the ring to become ridable.

It has been hard this year after living on the Island for the last 4 yrs and riding year round. Forgot what it was like in the winter, we have had very cold weather with snow and like you warm weather that turns everything to ice. The few days that it is nice and warm I tack up and go for a laid back trail ride. Horses are happy to just eat and be lazy till March.

[TSWJB]

[QUOTE=normandy_shores;7937986]

What I’ve done so far is groomed a track with 2 circles and diagonals, and try to maintain it so it isn’t too packed down. I didn’t think about that being packed and hard and icy when it comes to melt time. .[/QUOTE]

how do you groom an area to ride?

[kcmel]

I use a snow blower and make about 3 passes along the rail, and some 20 meter circles. It does melt faster. But then, I don’t live in Canada

[normandy_shores]

[QUOTE=TSWJB;7940190]
how do you groom an area to ride?[/QUOTE]

I sort of half plow, leaving some snow behind (otherwise it ices over too quickly).

After I’ve ridden and it’s all chewed up, I pull the drag just to smooth it out a bit.
I only do a big figure 8 and a good 20m circle.

Now that we’ve just gotten two feet of snow, I can’t get the quad in there. One horse has tramped down something resembling a path but tomorrow we’re going to shovel a 20m circle at least.

Neighbour said he could do the snow removal for me late February when we hopefully won’t be expecting too much more snow.