OK, sitting here looking at the new snow pictures and endlessly clicking on the "trails closed" posts from last spring is killing us.....
For those of you lucky enough to live up there and who are in the know regarding the rules, frost in the ground, lake ice cover, snow cover etc. PLEASE throw the rest of us a bone on what your best guess is for when we might be able to get out and ride?
As soon as Muzzle loader is over?....One, two or three more good storms?....Christmas?....4th of July?...sell your sled due to global warming? Any reports, guesses or thoughts will do. Don't even care if you make it up, we just need to hear some hope.....
OK, so when do we ride?.....if you had to guess
At the county snowmobile council meeting yesterday afternoon, the consensus was to shoot for Friday Dec 19th to open Forest County trails. USForest Service gates can't be opened until after the musket season, Dec 11 th earliest. Then we have to groom those trails. Not good to groom a trail and then close a gate. Then the opening date has to published in the Offical public notice paper, forest republican, which is only published once a week. It comes out on a Thursday . Hence, Dec 19th. This the last time I explain this for 2014!
I'll take it
Dec 19th would be great. We're coming up that weekend for xmas . Now it's snow dance time:taz:
Trail Opening Requirements
[QUOTE=Johnnie]This the last time I explain this for 2014![/QUOTE]
This one from a few years back is my favorite:
[QUOTE=Johnnie;12845]
To reopen the trails we would have to contact several different land owners to open their gates. These are not farm gates but gates which are meant to keep vehicles outs. The US Forest Service, 2 different Connor families, Plum Cr, RMK, Cleermans, Forest CO. Forestry Alterton Farms, etc. Some of these land owners have several gates scattered out throughout Forest Co. Just count the gates on the NST alone. They would be reluctant to reopen their property right after locking their gates. They do not give us keys to their gates, just like you don't give us keys to your house. After we are sure all gates are open, then we could send our groomers out. All clubs in the county would have to be in sync to get all gates open and all trails groomed for a one weekend event. But the trails in Forest Co. couldn't still be officially opened until there is a notice published in the local paper and the local paper only comes out once a week! [B]These are a few of the reasons it takes us a while to open trails in the fall.[/B] Also, these are some of the reason, we don't like to close our trails mid-season if there is a melt. It is too hard to reopen them quickly. If it were only as simple as grooming the fresh snow and letting you go at it.
[/QUOTE]
:coolcat:
This one from a few years back is my favorite:
[QUOTE=Johnnie;12845]
To reopen the trails we would have to contact several different land owners to open their gates. These are not farm gates but gates which are meant to keep vehicles outs. The US Forest Service, 2 different Connor families, Plum Cr, RMK, Cleermans, Forest CO. Forestry Alterton Farms, etc. Some of these land owners have several gates scattered out throughout Forest Co. Just count the gates on the NST alone. They would be reluctant to reopen their property right after locking their gates. They do not give us keys to their gates, just like you don't give us keys to your house. After we are sure all gates are open, then we could send our groomers out. All clubs in the county would have to be in sync to get all gates open and all trails groomed for a one weekend event. But the trails in Forest Co. couldn't still be officially opened until there is a notice published in the local paper and the local paper only comes out once a week! [B]These are a few of the reasons it takes us a while to open trails in the fall.[/B] Also, these are some of the reason, we don't like to close our trails mid-season if there is a melt. It is too hard to reopen them quickly. If it were only as simple as grooming the fresh snow and letting you go at it.
[/QUOTE]
:coolcat:
Trail Opening Requirements
I created a sticky for it under Information + Activities and Events,
so you don't have to explain it every year,
you can just point them to the sub-forum:
[url=http://www.snowsafari.com/showthread.ph ... quirements]Trail Opening Requirements[/url]
:winterrules:
so you don't have to explain it every year,
you can just point them to the sub-forum:
[url=http://www.snowsafari.com/showthread.ph ... quirements]Trail Opening Requirements[/url]
:winterrules:
I'll be more careful with my questions next time.....
Sorry for starting the rehash thread of the opening and closing rules and regulations. It wasn't my intent nor is it the insight I was looking for.
What I meant to ask is what are the observations of the "environmental conditions" rather than the "Legal" hurdles. The Legal we are stuck with either way, every year. The variable in "when do we get to ride" is the environmental conditions, which we can't see from 100+ miles away.
[U][I]When the trails are legal to open,[/I][/U][U] d[/U]o we have enough snow on the ground to groom?
Is there a ice layer with the past freeze/thaw weather?
Are the swamps froze up?
How much ice is on the lakes?
Thanks.....
What I meant to ask is what are the observations of the "environmental conditions" rather than the "Legal" hurdles. The Legal we are stuck with either way, every year. The variable in "when do we get to ride" is the environmental conditions, which we can't see from 100+ miles away.
[U][I]When the trails are legal to open,[/I][/U][U] d[/U]o we have enough snow on the ground to groom?
Is there a ice layer with the past freeze/thaw weather?
Are the swamps froze up?
How much ice is on the lakes?
Thanks.....
