Snowmobile clubs are beginning grooming operations on North Country trails. Bill Muse and Bob Dumont attach blades to the grooming machine at the Swift Diamond warming hut in Stewartstown. (LORNA COLQUHOUN photos)
As grooming machines take to snowmobile trails around New Hampshire, anxious riders have already made tracks across acres of snow-covered woods and fields. 

“It’s very fluffy,” said Bill Muse, who was wrestling with power tools and cutter bars at the Swift Diamond Riders Clubhouse, getting the grooming apparatus ready for its first run this weekend, Dec. 15-16.

“There were a lot of people up here Saturday,” Muse said. “Last year, it was the middle of January before they could get out.”

After a string of disappointing winters, a series of early-season snowstorms has dropped well over a foot of snow in some parts of northern New Hampshire and, to the delight of businesses that count on the white stuff for their livelihoods, it has stuck around on the way to the holiday season. “This is a great boost,” said Chris Gamache, chief of the Bureau of Trails.

While trails have been open since last week in the White Mountains and in the Great North Woods, Saturday is the day when state grants to local snowmobile clubs begin paying out for grooming operations. Gamache said about $1.5 million, made possible through snowmobile registrations, will be paid out this winter.

“It’s less dollars than we had budgeted,” he said. “Through careful planning and no extravagant spending, we’re holding on.”

In spite of the late start to last year’s snowmobile season, by the end of the year, about 50,000 snowmobilers registered their sleds, up about 5,200 from the previous year, according to Fish and Game Maj. Timothy Acerno.

“We were nervous last November, December, January,” he said. “But with February and March sales, we did pull it out last season.”

Since the amount of money available for clubs to groom a 7,000-mile network of trails is dependent on riders registering their snowmobiles, lean winters have an effect on those grants.

“Having snow this early is definitely going to help,” Gamache said. “People want to get out and ride and seeing that they can get out this early should encourage them to register, especially over the holiday season.”

 


A snowmobiler enjoys a ride on the Warren-to-Woodstock trail last season.
There are no new laws on the books affecting the sport this year, Acerno said, but over the course of this season, conservation officers who patrol the trails will “crack down on sound.” 

Modified pipes on the machines do, he said, “make it difficult to establish trails and in some cases, can take them away.”

In the past two years, each season has seen three fatalities, down considerably from the record high of 10 in 1997. In all but one of those instances, he said, the fatalities have happened off trail. Speed accounts for the majority of summonses issued over the season, he said.

“Safety is pretty good,” he said. “The word is getting out there.”

He reminds parents that children under 14 must be accompanied by and adult and children over 12 must take a safety course.

“There are a lot more parents participating in those classes,” he said.

High gas prices are not expected to affect riders, Gamache said, although snowmobile clubs will feel a pinch from the cost of diesel fuel, which powers the groomers.

“People want to get out and go riding,” he said. “If it’s a good winter, people are going to ride. The clubs will feel it, though, since the price of diesel shot up this year.”

Snowmobilers should consult the trail conditions in the area where they will be riding. Gamache cautions them to “be prudent when riding” and “don’t consider riding on lakes or rivers.”

For more information: Bureau of Trails: nhtrails.org; and NH Snowmobile Association: nhsa.com.