How to get involved in the grooming game?

The best way to get experience is to get into snowmaking/trail crew at a smaller resort. If you are clear that you want to do cat driving/grooming and are willing to work the system, you could be in to cat in 2 years.

As an aside: ARE U INSANE???? Groomers have no life and drive around a hill in the dark for season after season. The cats have no suspension (bad back) and unless your working in early season/late season conditions there is barely any pushing relative to driving in circles.

- experience operating other kinds of heavy machinery
- connections
- right place, right time

you need your heavy machinery license, which is actually not too expensive or hard to get,

and to the post above me, i think that if you got to build park stuff it would be pretty sick for a job

I don't know about the grooming game, but if you're into hustlin let me know.

I know a lot of groomers who have enjoyable lives and great backs and STILL ride pretty much ever day. Even my buddy who is the bitch of the graveyard shift rides everyday he wants.

And whens the last time you were in a cat built more recently than the 1970s, because every single cat I've been in is pretty damn comfy.

But yes, you will be grooming trails in circles the whole time. You gotta start there though.

As mentioned before, being good with other heavy machinery is one of the most important things.

dude, amazing info! I'm going to try do some ride alongs this season while snowmaking, and depending on the visa situation for next season I'm thinkn of doing snowmaking at park city or somewhere similar and try get some ride alongs there too.

Yeah I want to get on a groomer real bad. My plan is heavy equipment school in september and then just  apply for every grooming job and or park position in N Tahoe. I figure if i cant get in a groomer my first year then I can just work park crew and make my connection to get in one the following especially with HE experience. Ive also got allot of Big boat /Huge responsibility driving jobs under my belt too. Hope i can get in pretty easy as i see adds looking for groomers every year. Good luck dude, it looks like a dream job too me, especially if i can have my dog with me at work as my co-pilot.

this.

grooming where i live would be easy peasy. we have 1 cat and 9 runs and 3 tube runs.