“We spend a lot of time repairing bridges,” said John Graves, president of the Presque Isle Snowmobile Club. “We need to make sure we have the planking for the bridges which is not just regular planking. It’s usually tamarack, which lasts longer and we have to have it sawed to three inches thick then we have to haul the wood down to the bridge using a lot of heavy equipment.”
Both the Caribou and Presque Isle snowmobile clubs spent a lot of time between the end of the 2005-2006 season and the beginning of the 2006-2007 season repairing bridges. For Caribou, the problem came with the heavy wind and rain storms experienced this fall.
A bridge across the Caribou stream near the Washburn road had fallen into disrepair over the summer. The cribbing, which supports the ends of the bridges appeared to be sinking into the stream and the frame of the bridge also were in need of repair. Volunteers went to work converting the steal from the covering of the downtown mall area into the frame for a 49-foot bridge.
Meanwhile, Mother Nature went to work plaguing the area with heavy wind and rain.
“This is the same bridge a week later,” said superintendent of parks Kathy Mazzuchelli pointing to a photo of the same spot taken Nov. 19. “It’s probably a six- to eight-foot drop normally to the bottom of the water and when we got all that rain the water went up over the bridge and extended out 16 feet [into the nearby potato field] and it’s two to three feet deep all the way out. To say nothing of the muck and mire. We were afraid at that point that we were going to lose the bridge.”
Volunteers finally got into the area around the first part of December and stabilized the bridge with the new cribbing and framework, but by that point, they also had to reshape the entire area so that water would wash away from the trail.
The Presque Isle Snowmobile Club faced a similar situation but ended up rerouting a portion of their trail for two years thanks to a combination of water and the ever loveable but destructive beavers.
Already located in a swampy area, a bridge just south of Presque Isle became the literal home to a colony of beavers.
“The beavers made a big dam out there and our bridge was right in the middle of it,” Graves said. “It was bad enough that the water came up to the bridge but then they built their house on top of the bridge. They just chewed through one of the planks, came up and made a nice big house.”
The club lost the use of the bridge and rerouted the trail for two years before the beavers were trapped out. This fall volunteers with the trail committee, spearheaded by trailmaster Larry Allen and assistant trailmaster Wayne Sweetser, replaced the bridge and stabilized it for use in the coming months.
Both clubs along with other organizations around the state face similar situations all year and the work load often falls on a small group of dedicated volunteers usually ranging in number from three to 25. The work those people do also ranges greatly from building bridges, clearing and maintaining trails and crafting signs to behind the scenes work like drafting grants and calling landowners for permission to maintain the trail on a particular parcel.
“Clubs suffer right now because they can’t get enough volunteer help,” Mazzuchelli said. “There’s a multitude of problems and aspects that people can work on … if we’re going to make the system work, we need more people to shoulder the load.”
A lot of maintenance during the season and out-of-season comes down to funding as well. The Caribou Snowmobile Club is one of a handful in the state that has merged with the parks and recreation department which helps with funding, grant work and volunteers while the Presque Isle club is still an independent organization.
“We compensate groomers as much as we can,” Graves said. “It’s not nearly what they’re worth but we give them a little. We’re always looking at replacing culverts and this year the club authorized $1,000 for making additional signs.”
Graves estimates that equipment and trail maintenance costs thousands of dollars a year which is funded through grants by the Department of Conservation, club fundraisers and membership fees. He adds that snowmobile registration fees paid to the state only partially come back to the local clubs.
“Most of the registration fee goes to the state to help fund the warden system and other things at the state level. It doesn’t all come back to us for trail work,” Graves said, “so if even half the sled owners in the area belonged to a club, it would help tremendously, plus it can make sledding a fun, social time.”
In Caribou, Mazzuchelli says that grants typically are written for $70-80,000 which includes off-season maintenance as well as grooming and clearing during the winter months, and she says that 70 percent of costs are generally reimbursed while the other 30 percent comes from donated time, money and equipment.
Both clubs underscore the importance of the economics of the snowmobiling industry and are also using that piece of the puzzle to get local businesses involved. Business members of the Presque Isle club are put on the trail map that comes out every year and is available to sledders around town. The club also sends their groomer up to the business so those utilizing the trail system have a clear path almost to the front door.
“One hand washes the other,” Graves said. “If businesses help us, we can provide better trails and more trails to bring more snowmobilers to the county … They all need to eat and get gas and lodging.”
Mazzuchelli agrees adding that putting the snowmobile club and the recreation department together has worked very well, creating a nice blend for the funding aspects.
Both Presque Isle and Caribou clubs maintain about 100 miles of trails and though they may be beautiful in the winter, that beauty doesn’t come without a lot of work.
“We want to be able to ensure that there’s consistency in the trail grooming and that they’re marked well, so we work with the state, the Maine Snowmobile Association and all the clubs in the state to make that happen,” Mazzuchelli said. “It’s more than just the local guys going out on a Sunday afternoon like it used to be. [Snowmobiling] is an industry run on the backs of volunteers. Whether that’s good or bad, it is and [clubs] love and take pride in [the trails] but we need assistance.”
For more information about joining the Presque Isle Snowmobile Club visit their Web site at www.presqueislesnowmobileclub.com or call membership committee chair person Karen Hilt at 764-3984 or Graves at 762-9251. For more information on the Caribou Snowmobile Club contact the Caribou Parks and Recreation Department at 493-4224.
Off-season work sustains industry, creates winter wonderland
CARIBOU and PRESQUE ISLE, Maine – The snow is high, the trail is groomed and clear of branches. Bridges span the distance of small waterways. It’s a snowmobiler’s dream, but what many people don’t see beneath that winter wonderland is the work that goes into a given trail system during the summer and fall. Between beaver dams and high wind and water, trails fall into disrepair on a nearly constant basis in the off season and making the trails safe again often falls into the hands of the local snowmobile club and a core group of dedicated volunteers.
