The latest news about Maine lakes and ponds.

Snowmobile Season Off to an Early Start in Central and Northern Maine

December 19, 2007 - Ladies and gentlemen, start your trail groomers. Mother Nature's early deposit of as much as 2 feet of snow across Maine earlier this week created something the state's $350 million snowmobile industry has prayed for since last year's nearly disastrous winter - an early start to the sledding season.

"We don't usually start grooming trails this time of year, usually it doesn't happen until after Christmas, but you can bet that we're out there now," Kenneth Michaud of Fort Kent said Wednesday.

A groomer for the Fort Kent Snowmobile Association and the Valley Snowriders Club, Michaud is among hundreds of volunteers from the 285 snowmobile clubs statewide who have begun preparing the state's 13,500 miles of snowmobile trails for a deluge of sledders this weekend.

The snowstorm hit so hard and fast that some clubs were caught flatfooted, said Bob Meyers, executive director of the Maine Snowmobile Association.

"I had a club president from the Belgrade Lakes area who told me today that he took apart the whole front-end suspension system of his club's drag sled on Friday afternoon," Meyers said, "so now he's scrambling to put it together in time for the weekend."

Yet trail condition reports started coming in to the association's Web site, mesnow.com, on Tuesday. They haven't abated since, and are indicating good conditions.

St. John Valley trails in northern Aroostook County are especially ripe as snow and snowmobiles have been there since Thanksgiving, Meyers said. About 36 miles of ITS 85 and ITS 92 were groomed Tuesday and Wednesday, Michaud said., from Fort Kent to Carter Brook, Daigle, New Canada, and St. John. Still, Meyers recommends checking for condition reports before setting off on trails or long trips. More importantly, Meyers warned snowmobilers that they should avoid riding on any frozen bodies of water.

"What we have here is the ideal widow-maker, 8 to 10 inches of snow on about a half an inch of ice. It's deadly" Meyers said. "It looks hard as a rock, but you get out on it and you're gone.

"This is literally changing hour by hour," Meyers said. "Be patient with the clubs. They are volunteers and it takes a little while for them to get geared up for something like this."

Many clubs don't start grooming trails until Dec. 15 or later as they try to husband their limited fuel funding for a typical snowmobiling season, which begins after Christmas or New Year's and lasts until late March or April, Meyers said. Last season would have been disastrous to state snowmobile industry, (which generates about $350 million, or the equivalent of about 3,200 full-time jobs), for its lack of snow had not half the year's total accumulation fallen in late March or April, Meyers said. The early snowfall bodes well for all snowmobilers and related winter sports industries - hotels, restaurants, sportinggoods dealers, camps and resorts - across the state.

That's particularly true in the Katahdin region, which was ranked sixth among the Top 10 Hot U.S. Travel Destinations for 2007 by the travel Web site TripAdvisor.com last November for, among other things, its snowmobile trails.

"If people start coming up here early to take advantage of the early snow, all those businesses will benefit quite nicely," said Millinocket Town Manager Eugene Conlogue, whose town anchors Katahdin.

"Most of these businesses base their season from mid-January onward, so anything that happens before that is cream. It has to benefit them greatly."

If, that is, the snow doesn't all melt and the high cost of gasoline doesn't keep people away. Michaud and Conlogue doubted either would occur. National Weather Service forecasts have temperatures peaking in Bangor in the low 30s through the weekend. That usually means temps well below freezing, and nice soft snow, from the Lincoln Lakes and Katahdin regions right on up into Canada. The addictive nature of snowsledding will take care of the rest.

"Gas prices won't keep anybody away. For snowmobilers, a trip is just like you going on a vacation," Michaud said.


"Are you going to say that you are going to only have two drinks tonight because the price of a drink has gone up a dollar?"


SOURCE: BANGOR DAILY NEWS

DATE: 12-06-2007


Lakes:
Regions:


Print this story

Email this story

return to Lake News