7881-R1_MSA_Feb2022_MaineSnowmobiler

From The Executive Board

less snow. The County clubs are a great group of people with ideas that are helping to drive up their memberships, allowing them to engage riders who have never joined before and who are embracing technology to change how they do the day-to-day work needed to run a club. It seems that many clubs are seeing increased overall membership. Many fundraisers and events have occurred and many more planned in February. Get out & support your local club or charity by attending or helping with these events. I have spoken with many clubs here in the County who have new leadership, please remember you do not have to learn it all on your own, there is a community of club members to help you. If your club has questions about bucket list. The Christianson family runs the place and everyone in the family has a job to do. The day we were there the four-year-old was bussing tables! The food is home-cooked and the atmosphere is definitely Maine! On a sad note, we did find out the Bowlin Camps has closed to the public. This was another of the places to stop, get a nice meal and warm up when it that area. It was sad to go by the trail to the camps and see the closed sign and no groomer tracks in. This leaves Matagamon and Shin Pond Village as the go to spots in that area now. Shin Pond Village has completely remodeled the inside and is also a great place to eat and get warmed up so you can add them to your list. While you are at it in this area you might also want to add Libby Camps, which is further north, but a nice place to go as well. The Eastern Region has another snowmo- bile club forming! I would like to welcome Bowerbank SC to the region. It is located near Sebec Lake in Piscataquis County and they are ready to accept members. This is another annual “Race your neighbor” Drag race. The date is March 12th, 2022. Check out our web- site at the St. Francis Sno Angels for updates. More to follow. Ride safe and treat the landowners and their property with respect. They don’t HAVE to let us use their land. St. Francis Sno-Angels. Kim M Ouellette Hi Gang, Well, here we are on the 24th of Jan. and we really are still waiting to get our groom- ing season into high gear, because of a lack of snow. Tim Coombs has been on ITS#83 twice and Keith Sanford has been on ITS#81 once. Even with these low snow conditions, mem- berships are still doing well, as we stand at 110 members to date. If you would like to join the Snowgang you can go to www.benedictas- nowgang.com and join there or you can find us on Facebook, send us a message, and we will send you an application. that way. Don’t forget that the Snowgang annual Fishing Derby is Feb. 19th, which is also Maine free fishing day!! Lots of money and prizes are available. Well, I am going shedd hunting, so gotta go!! There better be one or two laying on my lawn!! Jim Splan Reporter @ Large p.s. -23 nooooo p.ss. - snowdance! p.sss. - frozen p.ssss. - 61 days til spring! BENEDICTA SNOWGANG Benedicta, ME ROCKABEMA SNOW RANGERS Patten, ME Email: rockabemasnowrangers@gmail.com FB: Patten - Rockabema Snow Rangers It was good to have an actual meeting this month. We had to cancel in December due to

H Hello fellow snowmobilers, Wow its cold out! And that’s actually a blessing as we deal with less-than-ideal snow conditions and yet the trails are great considering how thin the base really is. People have been flocking to the snow from near & far and clubs and their volunteers have stepped up and made them great trails to ride on. I know I have seen and heard of snowmobilers from all over here in Aroostook County. Just because there has not been the same amount of grooming hours year to date as normal does not mean the clubs’ expenses are that much less. All the work to get the trails ready to ride really adds up and lower snow means more hours spent getting signs up, more time to groom as it is slower going with Virginia and even Washington DC have seen more snow than most of us have at this point in Mid-January as I write this, and they do not want it. We have family in both North Carolina and Virginia and we told them to send it our way, but by the time it gets here, it changes to rain and then turns everything to ice!! Hope- fully by the time you are reading this the pat- tern has changed and we are buried in snow! For an early season ride Larry and I went to Millinocket, parked in the parking lot off the Golden Road, and rode through Baxter Park to Matagamon. The best time for this ride is when there is limited snow before all the moguls have not yet popped up. We went on a Friday and felt we might beat the crowd, but I guess many, many others had the same idea. As we sat in Matagamon having our meal all we could see were sleds coming out of the park. The place quickly filled up (great for them) and people were outside waiting when we left. If you haven’t been to Matagamon Wilderness Store, you need to put it on your will continue to hold off on regular club meet- ings. The Directors will handle any issues that occur. At least we can get outdoors and enjoy the trails! Call me at 764-1236 if you have any questions and follow us on Facebook. Sue Maynard Secretary ST. FRANCIS SNO ANGELS St. Francis, ME The snow is here, Yeah, but unfortunately the cold is here as well. We are on our third week of below normal temps. (January, of course.) The groomer team has had the opportunity to test out our new/used groomer and every- thing is going well. We are starting to see traf- fic since we are one of the few places to have adequate snow. We have a solid base with almost a foot of new snow. If it was warm enough to stand outside and listen the sounds of BRAAP, BRAAP would replace the sounds of the birds. But this week with a wind chill of -27, the forays outside are quick and fast. That being said, we have a nice warm snowmobile lodge that welcomes you to use our clean bathrooms and warm up next to our woodstove. We are serving hot meals on Sat- urdays and are open on Fridays for our meet and greet times. Come join us! We have met some wonderful new people, you know who you are, and hope to meet many more of you. Now that I’m done complaining about the cold, we are looking forward to a solid 6 – 8 weeks of prime snowmobiling. The weather will warm and the February sun will bring adventures like you have never experienced. Aren’t you tired of being inside? Northern Maine awaits you. If you close your eyes, you can feel the cool breeze in your face and the warming sun bringing the promise of spring. There are no traffic Jams up here, just wide open spaces and well groomed trails. Come north, you know you want to. As I type this, we are busy planning for our

Eastern Region VP

link in that area and will make the riding up that way all that much better. Bernie Doble is the president and he is also on the MSA trails committee, so he knows what the trails should be like. Getting more snow to cover all the ice will be the key to riding here as well as any- place else right now. By the time you read this, the Eastern Region showcase ride will most likely have come and gone as well as the Feb. directors meting in Millinocket. It sure would be nice to get more directors to come to these meetings. Each month the Pot of Gold is drawn and a club director has to be present. The pot stands at $400 and what club couldn’t use the money. March we will be at the Big Valley Snow- mobile Club in Island Falls for our northern region meeting. Great riding to be had in this area as well, so come join us. Until March, enjoy the riding when and where you can. Our season is short enough as it is without all the rain and ice we have gotten so far. Stay safe everyone! Eileen what the MSA is doing, how other clubs function, how to use State resources, what can be done to assist in fundraising do not be afraid to ask. Running a volunteer organization can be a daunting task, but not when you have a good community helping you along the way. Remember the Northern Region showcase ride & directors meeting Saturday March 12th Hosted by Big Valley Sno Club in Island Falls. Join us for a nice ride, a chance to check out the sites of Southern Aroostook, a nice dinner and the directors meeting at the club house on Rt #2. If you have a question, problem, concern, or idea on snowmobiling in “The County”, get in touch with me. You can contact me at the phone # or email listed. Matt Stedman icy weather conditions and in November we hosted the MSA for a signage meeting. We had the usual potluck supper at 5:30pm. Since there were some new faces at the meet- ing, President Bob went around the room for introductions. It’s always good to put a face to a name. Also, great to have some new mem- bers join our meetings to see what is happen- ing in the club. We went over the treasurer’s information and voted to pay the additional $5000 for the refurbishment of the Pisten Bully. Laura has submitted a grant for the club on the reroute done on ITS81 off the Railroad Bed heading North towards Route 11. The reroute was worked on by Patten ATV Club and RSR supported with funds, signing and landowner permission. The trail will go through K & C parking lot on the south side, go to the back of the building, through the fir trees to the origi- nal trail used in the past. Another trail reroute is ITS81 south in Sta- cyville. We are not using the driveway to the box factory. We will be moving to the left closer to the Railroad tracks and woods. Sher- man ATV put gravel and a culvert in the area. One of our landowner/members came to discuss the problems he has had with sledders disrespecting his property. So sad for the club to hear these problems. Thankfully, he was willing to work with the club to reroute the intown trail that crosses opposite the Lumber- man’s Museum. The trail coming off the pole line headed north on ITS81 will take a left and go along the alders to cross Rte 159. If you take a right, you will go to the intown trail for businesses. This has been signed, please fol- low the signs. Just because the trail used to be there doesn’t mean you can continue, if the property has changed hands and the club has moved signs of the location of the new trail. RESPECT LANDOWNERS ALWAYS! Trailmaster reported on the Groomer Fleet. The Pisten Bully is on its way home and needs

Eileen Lafland, 207-843-7813 PO Box 733, Holden ME 04429 llafland@midmaine.com

D oes anyone else feel like there is con- spiracy against us getting the snow we want? I mean really, Georgia, the Carolinas,

Northern Region VP

Matt Stedman 207-557-1921 (call or text)

PO Box 621, Ashland ME 04732 Stedman.matt@jdirving.com

MSA Club News

Deadlines for club news is the 25 th of the month prior to the publications. Please submit articles to editor@mesnow.com

NORTHERN REGION

CHAPMAN RIDGE RUNNERS SNOWMOBILE AND ATV CLUB Chapman, ME

Dear Members, January here in the County has been brutal! Actual temps to -35 and wind chills to -45. But you know we all will be out there sledding even though we probably shouldn’t. Dress warmly in layers and be safe. The trails are great! Just be careful in the fields. Don’t leave the trail in the fields espe- cially, in case there are rocks. Another snow- storm will take care of that. As they say in the Valley, “Just come north.” We’re ready. The groomers have been busy attempting to keep up with the snow we’ve had recently. The groomers meet every Wednesday eve- ning at 6:00 at the Bull Pen (next to the club- house at 94 Town Hall Rd. Chapman) for training and maintaining equipment. Anyone interested in helping on the trails in any way should come to the Wednesday night meeting or call Mickey at 764-1236 or 227-6365. All snowmobilers should use caution when cross- ing the West Chapman Rd. near the town of Mapleton (trail #81) and on the Pulcifur Rd. (trail #105) south of the railbed. These two areas are known for extreme drifting and the banks left by the snowplow can be very steep. With one groomer we can’t do the entire trail system in one day, so a rider might encounter a steep bank with no track up over it until the groomer gets to it. We’ll get there as quickly as we can. As there is an increase in covid-19 cases, we

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