Reflections on a Really Nice Long Winter
John Harrigan,
Union Leader
April 13, 2008
HERE ARE SOME thoughts on the winter past (we think, anyway), snowmobiles, cross-country skiers, the cost of grooming trails and the price of gas. All of this was occasioned by an editorial in the Coos County Democrat and a conversation with Peter Rouleau in the lobby at the Colebrook Post Office.
As I wrote this there was still plenty of snow outside the News and Sentinel building, more at our house (elevation 1,554 feet) on South Hill, and a ton more in the high country of Pittsburg, Clarksville and Stewartstown, where, if the rain-free gradual snow-melt continues, snowmobile season could run another couple of weeks. For the die-hards, this means contacting the Pittsburg Ridge Runners or the Swift Diamond Riders to get last-minute updates before heading north.
Editor Eileen Alexander's editorial credited the Dalton Ridgerunners for a new bridge, and reflected, "How lucky I am to live in a place where I can ski around open fields and then just a few hundred yards away get out onto a groomed snowmachine trail that can give me miles and miles of cross-country skiing pleasure." She added that she's always found snowmobilers to be courteous and friendly.
Amen to all that. We are a family of cross-country skiers, but we also own snowmachines, mainly for trips that involve a task, like shoveling off a camp roof or hauling a sled loaded with ice-fishing gear. But even if we don't even register the machines, which was the case this past season, we maintain memberships in the three major snowmobile clubs in our area. Whether we use the trails or not, we feel that we should chip in for their upkeep.
For the clubs and their trail-grooming efforts, this winter has been a doozy. They have expended tremendous fuel and manpower. Figures are at an all-time high.
But so are receipts for local gas stations, motels, merchants, convenience stores, cabins and nightspots. Even though trails in the mid-section of the state been good riding, riders have still flocked to the far north, where they can ride farther and longer and things are less congested. There's a certain frontier freedom to it all.
As for the price of gas, forget it. Its much-ballyhooed effect on snowmobiling is nil, nada, nothing.
Think of it this way. If you have $15,000 invested in a snowmachine with all the bells and whistles, and triple that in a vehicle and trailer and clothing and accessories, and you've been waiting all year to use this stuff and ride the trails, and looking forward to your time away from it all, on the trails and maybe in a camp or cottage that you own anyway, and anticipating the camaraderie that goes with it all, are you going to let a little thing like gas at even four or five bucks a gallon get in your way?
No way.