Even though there’s no snow yet that doesn’t mean Club Snow isn’t preparing for the upcoming snowmobiling season.
Since September the club has been preparing the trails to get ready for the 2012-2013 season.
“We’ve started about the first part of September doing our first meeting even though there is no snow. We have to prepare for the season in the sense of getting our club members together after being away all summer, getting it so we know where our trails are,” said Club Snow president Ken Penman.
The club is responsible for 296 km of trails that need to not only be prepared but also have to be marked appropriately before the snow even hits the ground.
“We’ve spent the last three weekends, both Saturday and Sunday, going out and doing these trails,” said Penman. “We have to make sure that there’s no trees or things that have fallen down or things that are going to impede. We have to do signs, we’ve just spent $1,000 just buying 2×8 poles and painting them orange and black and putting the reflective tape on it.”
One trail in particular that will have some changes to it is the one on Highway 8 running along Delta Beach. Because of a lack of accesability from last year’s flooding an new trail has to be made looping back around into existing trails.
“We’re developing a new trail in the sense that the loop instead of having to come up and go to St. Laurent…from the warm up shelter you can loop around through Delta and come back again and tie in,” said Penman. “We’ve been working on getting through the marsh to get this done. Right now we’re not able to get that far into it because there’s no ice, that’s all mushy.” Some 16 ft poles to be able to see over the cat tails.”
Club members have also been busy contacting advertisers to go on this year’s trail map, arranging with farmers and community pastures for permission to run the trail across their land, and rebuilding a piece of the Assiniboine River bank near Long Plain for the trail.
“Last year we never had a trail. We did all the same work last year as what we’re doing this year but we never opened this trail because there wasn’t enough snow. We’re trying to set up this year where…we are trying to party together with people,” said Penman.
A change that riders will also notice is that the RCMP will be monitoring the trails this winter for riders without trail passes.
“It used to be that the club members if we were out riding the trail and somebody came along with a snow machine that didn’t have a trail pass we’d try to talk to them and encourage them to buy the pass because that’s how we pay for the trails and the rest of it. Now it’s going to be the RCMP that are going to be out on the trails along with us,” said Penman.
Trail passes can be purchased when you register your snowmobile. A $125 provincial pass will get the rider access to all of the trails in Manitoba as well as the Saskatchewan trails. Those without a trail pass will have a different sticker noting that.
For more on Club Snow you can visit them on their newly designed website at www.clubsnowportage.com.
