Less than 24 hours after taking a wait and see approach, South East Sno-Riders has announced it has closed its entire trail system.

On Tuesday morning, President Dave Boutang told Steinbachonline.com that trails would remain open until a more thorough inspection could be done. But Wednesday morning, Boutang announced the decision has been made that for safety reasons, the trails are now closed.

"With the colder weather the trails are really rutty," explains Boutang. "We just feel it's going to be too dangerous for anybody to ride them because you hook a rut and hit a tree or something like that."

Boutang says he is hopeful they can reopen the trails yet this winter, but he says that depends on the forecast.

"Tell me we're going to get four or five inches of snow and they will probably open again," he says. "But until such time as that, they really wouldn't be opened."

Boutang says they are not the only ones to make this decision, noting other clubs in the surrounding area have also pulled the plug. Further to that, he says there is water everywhere and probably some creeks and small rivers that have open water.

According to Boutang, it has been a challenging season. Though a lot of snow has fallen this winter, Boutang says, unfortunately, much of it came before the ground froze. As a result, there has been water underneath their trails.

"What hurt us the most was the thaw that we had in January," he says. "With the ground still not being frozen, then it was melting from both top and bottom, it filled our ditches with water and that pretty much was the end of us."

Boutang says if sledders decide to venture out onto trails from here on, it is ride at your own risk.

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