A fantastic snowmobile season is over and trails are now officially closed

The South East SnoRiders organization officially closed its trails for the season on Sunday. 

President of the club, Mitch Gobeil says this may be the first time they’ve had their trails open into April.  

“People got a little bit of a longer riding season, kind of making up for the late start in fall.” 

Though Gobeil himself, didn’t go out on the trails after last week's snowfall, he says he’s heard from snowmobile enthusiasts that the trails were fantastic. 

“So, we didn't groom the fresh snow because it was later in the week and then it got warm right away and it doesn't groom very well when it's warm, but the snowmobilers I spoke to said the trails were fantastic, and that here in the extreme southeast corner of the province, where we are that 12 inches of snow, well, that just made them fantastic, like they enjoyed every minute of it. They had nothing but accolades for the trails.” 

Gobeil explains why they didn’t close the trails sooner.  

“Mostly, because of the forecast for warm weather. We didn't expect to have them (the trails) open this past week ourselves, again, with the warm weather. But we held off closing them because of the pending storm. And figuring if we're going to get a foot of snow, you know, we're not going to groom them (the trails), but snowmobiles will still be able to get out there and enjoy the trails, which they did.” 

Gobeil notes that the staff at Silverbirch Resort at Moose Lake Provincial Park reported that last week Friday, they had around 80 machines stop in for fuel. And that was just on Friday.  

“I also spoke to the restaurant owner in South Junction, and they said they were extremely busy on Friday with it being, you know, Good Friday, there were a lot of people able to get out.” 

And so, what is the deciding factor to shut down the trails? Gobeil says,  

“It's a combination of things. As I said with the warm weather we have, there's no way we can groom the trails and after a weekend of the trails getting beaten up, for lack of a better term, you know, getting packed down with the snowmobiles and stuff, we've even seen just a little bit of ground exposed. So we needed to close the trails. You know, the sun is just soaking up the snow and melting the snow. It's disappearing, not quite as quickly as it came, but it is disappearing quite fast.” 

Gobeil says it's also necessary to close the trails because if snowmobiles drive longer distances on dirt their machines start to overheat.  

“If you end up having to go a fair distance on dirt, or in some cases, what people call ‘snert’, which means snow with dirt in it, well, the gravel stuff gets into your track, and the sliders start melting because the machine needs snow to keep from overheating."

He notes most snowmobiles are a treasured-piece of machinery that most drivers take very good care of.  

Gobeil says that overall the trails for the 2022-23 snowmobile season have been in really good condition.

“Our club groomed over 10,000 kilometers of trail this winter, which is about 88% of our allotted trails, so there's a lot. Also, we had 22 volunteer operators who put in over 1300 hours which doesn’t include all the other stuff that our volunteers do to get those 10,000 plus kilometers done.” 

Gobeil is very appreciative of all the dedicated volunteers.  

“Like any other volunteer organization, the dedication of our volunteers is the life of our organization. The groomer operators are also snowmobilers, so they all want to get out there and ride, as well as groom.” He adds that even with both their groomer grooming, the operators still volunteer in 12-hour shifts.  

What's next?

Now that snowmobiling season is over, Gobeil says they move into summer mode, which typically means getting maintenance done on the groomers. He says this winter they realized how much the club needed the second groomer as the tracks broke on their older machine. So, since January 2023 they’ve only been using the newer groomer, which they’ve been very grateful for.   

For now, Gobeil says, they’ll take some time to do post-winter upkeep on the machines and then getting back into fall, they’ll check the machines again. He notes they'll also be doing TLC work on their warm-up shelters.  

“They’ll need the interiors fixed up. You know, most of our shelters are not accessible during the summer, but for those that are, we're planning on having some work crews and volunteers get together and paint the interiors of these buildings and maybe even do some exterior work. Trail clearing doesn't usually start happening till mid to late November into December, because storms will knock trees down throughout the year.” 

He notes another job volunteers will be responsible for in the coming weeks will be to take down the snowmobile trails signs. “Because the ATV clubs leave their signs up, they are more permanent, in winter they cover them so as not to confuse the snowmobilers who won’t accidentally go on a trail intended for ATVs. Overall we've got a pretty good working relationship with the Eastman ATV club and Woodridge Sandhogs, some of them are even members of our board.” 

Now at the close of another snowmobile season, Gobeil says, “Thank you to all of our volunteers. The people that do so many things, in many cases the same people that are groomer operators also do a lot of the other stuff, from putting up signs to clearing trails, building maintenance to equipment maintenance. They all wear different hats, and multiple hats at the same time.”  

Photo credit for the gallery images: South East SnoRiders Facebook page.