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If you were driving up on West Circle Drive the other day and saw a wildly large amount of yellow caution tape flying around, here's what was going on.

Dave Greymont is a ski trail groomer for Quarry Hill Nature Center. There are nine altogether, but so far he's the only one that threw caution to the wind...or more accurately hundreds and hundreds of yards of caution tape were thrown to the wind and all over West Circle Drive. 

I got in touch with him and, Dave's words, here's how it went down.

We groom the trails with an ATV that has 4 tracks instead of wheels and tow the grooming equipment behind it. Yesterday I was just using a roller (like a large plastic piece of culvert with a comb behind it to smooth out the surface). Once a year I’ve volunteered to groom a hill at the Rochester Golf and Country Club for the Rochester Children’s Museum cardboard box sled race. (That’s this Saturday if the snow survives the warm temperatures.)

Yesterday I was trailering the ATV and roller on West Circle Dr. up over the hill past the History Center and towards 2nd. Street SW. A car passed me trailing 100’s and 100’s of yards of yellow caution tape that I think was snagged on his rearview mirror.

I thought “Gee that looks a lot like the caution tape we keep in the toolbox of the ATV”. I checked my mirror and sure enough, the lid to the toolbox had come open and the yellow caution tape was spooling off the large role in the box! Then another car passed me and drove over the tape trailing behind the first car and broke off a large piece.

I stopped along the edge of the roadway and picked up that piece, but the first car continued going with still a significant long length of tape trailing behind it.

Dave was only able to recover a tiny percent that was lost to the wild cars and whipping wind of Rochester, Minnesota. (Photo by Dave Greymont)
Dave was only able to recover a tiny percent that was lost to the wild cars and whipping wind of Rochester, Minnesota. (Photo by Dave Greymont)
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I can just imagine Dave standing there, watching the seemingly endless amount of tape driving off to a new life, a new purpose. Bye bye tape, I'd say as I waved.

 

Who is Dave?

I’m one of the ski trail groomers for the trails at Quarry Hill Nature Center. There’s about 9 volunteer groomers that maintain the ski trails at Quarry Hill. There’s another group of volunteer groomers for the ski trails at Essex Park. RASC is an entirely volunteer run organization that organizes and hosts the Rochester Nordic Ski Team with 150 members this year and 40 volunteer coaches. We also host the Rochester High School Mountain Bike Team.

A couple years ago we did a story on the Nordic Ski Team's Olympic Event...it was great. Check it out here.

ROCHESTER NORDIC SKI TEAM'S OLYMPICS

By the way, when the next season starts, it doesn't matter how much experience you have skiing. They have coaches for beginners!

As always, if you have a comment, complaint, or concern about something I wrote here, please let me know: james.rabe@townsquaremedia.com

Listen to James Rabe and Jessica Williams Weekday from 6 - 10 AM on Y-105 FM

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