Snowcrest president Bob Clarke recently asked town council to donate nearly four acres of land to the club for a clubhouse and maintenance shop. He asked that the land be provided through a low-cost lease. The facility would be constructed to provide storage and office space for the club.

Clarke said the Gravenhurst-based snowmobile club is the largest club of 11 in Muskoka based on its trail network and number of permits sold, but is one of a very few without a site to store and maintain the equipment the club and the community relies on.

He said during the winter months, the club runs its industrial groomers practically every night.

“Our operators and mechanics are forced to work on equipment in temperatures most of us would be reluctant to walk a block in,” said Clarke.

The club recently identified town land off Industrial Drive as an ideal location for a shop/clubhouse as it is adjacent to the club’s main C101D trail. The land is situated between Bethune Drive and the CN rail line and runs down to the Hoc Roc River.

“We’re requesting that the property be designated and leased to the club…” Clarke explained to council. “If we can lease this land, we don’t assume the land tax.”

If the club were to assume ownership of the land, Clarke said money to cover the property taxes would come off the quality of trails.

He suggested the town could cover the cost of any required survey work and waive municipal fees associated with the project.

Clarke reinforced the benefits of an active snowmobiling community, stating snowmobilers spend $3 million annually in the area.

“We want sledders to not just pass through, but to come back and stay,” he said.

He encouraged the town to work together with the club to promote snowmobiling in Gravenhurst.

“We need the Town of Gravenhurst to recognize the tourism and economic benefits Snowcrest brings to the town each year,” he said. “We’re asking the town to help us help support our community.”

Councillors were keen on the concept, but decided to wait for a report from a planning and financial perspective before making a decision. Planning staff are also contacting CN Rail regarding any potential issues.

“I support the idea,” said Coun. Randy Jorgensen, adding it’s an opportunity for the sport to grow in town. “The definition of a snowmobiler is one riding around with pockets full of cash looking for places to spend it.”

Coun. Lola Bratty encouraged Snowcrest Riders to contact the immediate neighbours to get them on side.

“Other than the construction phase, we don’t see the noise being any more than it would be now,” Clarke responded.

At 15 years, Schofield is one of the youngest members of the Snowcrest Riders Snowmobile Club and the youngest rookie award recipient out of OFSC’s 232 clubs in the province.

The Severn River teen started volunteering with Snowcrest in 2009 and added another 500-plus hours in 2010. Before he graduates from Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary School, he hopes to record 1,000 volunteer hours.

Schofield was selected as the club rookie of the year for 2009/10 by Snowcrest’s board of directors. The board then successfully nominated him for the OFSC District 7 rookie volunteer of the year award.

“Snowcrest Riders has never seen a young volunteer as energetic, enthusiastic and willing to learn all aspects of club operations as Blake Schofield,” Snowcrest president Bob Clarke wrote in his nomination.

It was a surprise for Schofield to later receive provincial recognition at the OFSC annual general meeting in September. It was a well kept secret for more than three months.

“I didn’t know I had been nominated for the award,” he said. “I was really shocked. I didn’t know what to say.”

Schofield fell in love with snowmobiling when he was 11 years old and after a one-day course obtained his licence to legally ride the OFSC trails when he was 12.

He is the only one in his family to take up snowmobiling and has saved his money over the past four years to be able to purchase multiple sleds.

Snowmobiling is his preferred winter activity.

“I used to snowshoe and toboggan and cross-country ski, but now I snowmobile with my friends every weekend,” he said.

Of getting involved with the Snowcrest club, Schofield said he volunteers his time because of the friends he has been able to make through the many activities.

“Definitely it’s the people,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of good people.” Before getting involved with Snowcrest, Schofield sold permits at a snowmobile show through the Volunteers in Action booth.

His volunteer work with the club is not just restricted to the winter months. In the spring and fall he has helped with signage and brushing, and helps through the snowmobile season with grooming the trails, staking the lakes, helping to sell permits, distributing trail maps, and reporting local trail conditions through online snowmobile forums.

He first got involved when the club was finalizing a section of the Top D trail surrounding the 240-foot Beaver Creek bridge that opened last winter.

He has participated in the club’s Easter Seals for Snowarama ride and raised $150 in pledges during the Prostate Extreme Team ride in Parry Sound last month.

Eager to learn more about snowmobile operations, he also saved up $200 from cutting grass to attend a workshop during the OFSC’s AGM.

“I want to stay with it,” he said of volunteering. “I would like to get more involved with District 7 and go to some of their meetings.”

At OFSC’s AGM, the Snowcrest club received four of the 12 awards. The club was also one of four nominated for OFSC’s club of the year award.

Gravenhurst will host the 2012 Prostate Extreme Team Charity Ride, Snowcrest Riders Snowmobile Club president Bob Clarke has learned.

The local club has been working to attract the organization’s annual Sled Ride of Hope, which this year was held in Parry Sound on Saturday.

“It’s growing,” Clarke said of the event that raises funding for prostate cancer research. “It’s becoming comparable to the Kelly Shires Ride for Breast Cancer.”

Accommodation for the event will be provided by the Marriott Residence Inn at Muskoka Wharf.

For the past six years, a group of Kahshe Lake snowmobilers banded together to run their own ride to benefit the extreme team’s cause.

The group of about 16 riders has raised $20,000 over six years.

Now they are looking forward to hitting the trails with the main event next year.

Michael Wayling explained the Kahshe Lakers had wanted to participate, but issues with trailering snowmobiles made it difficult to travel to where the ride is held.

“Now we can sled over there (to the Marriott) and participate, or stay for the weekend,” said Wayling. “Won’t have to worry about how we get to the main event, it’s coming to us.”

Steve Hutton, Prostate Extreme Team founder, said the group receives a lot of community requests to host the event.

“I wanted to be in Graven­hurst for a while, but we never had the accommodations,” said Hutton. “The Marriott was the game changer.”

He’s expecting 75 to 100 sledders to help the team reach its annual fundraising goal of $20,000.

“On average we see 65 to 75 riders, but Gravenhurst may be a lot different because it’s further south and a little more central,” said Hutton.

In 2010, the event’s fifth year running the trails, nearly $15,000 was raised for Wellspring Halton/Peel, Wellspring Chinguacousy Foundation and Prostate Cancer Canada.

The Prostate Extreme Team is a non-profit organization run by volunteer outdoor enthusiasts to bring awareness to the disease that is as prevalent to men as breast cancer is to women.

An estimated one in six men will be diagnosed with the disease within their lifetime.

Men 40 years and older are encouraged to undergo annual testing as early detection can save lives.

Thank you to:

The many businesses that support us by purchasing map ads space, sponsoring or donating to our special events throughout the year. Thank you for your generous contributions;

Snowcrest volunteers who work in wet, cold and generally undesirable conditions to help us get the trails open as soon as possible. To our other volunteers who donate their time and many other skills to ensure as a club we are continuously improving and working with and for our community;

Our groomer operators who spend their winter nights out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a cellphone and two-way radio protecting them from the -30 C temperatures and other winter conditions that they are presented with;

Snowcrest Riders board of directors who make the decisions determining all the workings of the club, from when the grooming will begin to coordinating the special events;

The Town of Gravenhurst, who has worked closely with Snowcrest Riders and assisted with the new bridge over Beaver Creek and other major trails reroutes and upgrades;

To our landowners who selflessly donate a part of their land each season to our almost 300 kilometres of well-groomed, safe trails. They help with the winter economy in Gravenhurst, assisting with keeping the Gravenhurst community employed, and our favourite local businesses sustainable during the winter months.

Each of you are an integral piece of the giant picture and with each of us working together, we are positive contributors to our community. We help ensure that our community remains a premier winter destination for family recreation. Everyone involved should be proud of their contribution.

Snowcrest Riders would not and could not maintain the trails in south Muskoka without all of us working together as one. Gravenhurst does not have ski hills, tubing hills or snowboarding hills. Gravenhurst has snowmobiling. Snowmobiling is arguably the No. 1 economic engine for tourism in the Gravenhurst area.

With much thanks to all of you we can again celebrate another very successful season. We look forward to working with all of you again for the 2011 season.

NEW BRIDGE.

GRAVENHURST — It’s official. The 2009-10 snowmobile season has been great for Snowcrest Riders.

Bob Clarke, president of the Gravenhurst-area snowmobile club, said the club has much to celebrate going forward in 2010 after two significant investments.

On Wednesday, club representatives gathered with volunteers and members of the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Club’s District 7, to commemorate the official reopening of the snowmobile bridge over Beaver  Creek.

The nearly $400,000 bridge, which is located on the picturesque Top D Trans Canada Trail in Gravenhurst, replaces the bridge removed in 2006 after the Department of Fisheries and Oceans declared it violated the Federal Fisheries Act.

The bridge’s construction disrupted a cold-water fish habitat, DFO said.

The Town of Gravenhurst was fined $5,000 in the incident.

The new bridge, funded equally by the National Trails Coalition and OFSC, was constructed last year in late summer and early fall by Fowler Construction, Clarke said.

It reopens and improves more than 30 kilometres of snowmobile and shared-use trail, where permitted, by addressing safety concerns with the previous route, which ran onto Doe Lake Road, he explained.

Clarke said the excessive road running caused damage to snowmobiles. When the trail closed approximately four years ago, it deterred snowmobilers from visiting the community, he added.

“The new, 240-foot bridge will allow for the trail route to be relocated off of busy concession roads and into a much more secure and scenic area,” said Clarke. “The project will greatly enhance provincial riding opportunities.”

The club began preparing for the project two and a half years ago. It made a commitment to OFSC trail permit buyers that it would be shovel ready, should funding become available for a new bridge.

Tony Clement, Parry Sound-Muskoka MP, was pleased the federal government’s stimulus fund could provide the monies needed to replace the original crossing.

He said the bridge is important for the economy, Muskoka’s tourism and safe snowmobiling.

In addition to the bridge, Snowcrest Riders this season also received a 2005 Pisten Bully groomer, valued at approximately $100,000, through the OFSC’s industrial groomer program fund. The OFSC grant funded about 80 per cent of the groomer, with Snowcrest covering about 20 per cent of the cost. The third groomer for the club, the Pisten Bully replaces a 2003 groomer that struggled to perform necessary grooming.

Trail permit sales dropped about 10 per cent, but Snowcrest anticipates selling more than 1,000 trail permits this season.

Norm Woods, OFSC District 7 president, attributed the decline in sales to the late snowfall this winter and the economy

At my first Board meeting as Club President, my first order of business was to make it perfectly clear to our directors that to be successful, Snowcrest Riders Snowmobile Club must collectively as a Board make the decisions that affect this organization. As Permit buyers / Club members, we appreciate your input, ideas, and suggestions to base some of our decisions on.

You will notice that our 2009 Trail map will be printed on more user friendly material. This was based on some of your concerns that once a few snowflakes landed on the map material we have been using, the map would fall apart.

For the first time, Snowcrest Riders now has Operating Procedures, Health & Safety Policy, Safety Assurance Procedures with Theory and Practical Training for Groomer Operation, Chainsaw Operation, and Staking & Monitoring of Waterways.

Also, for the first time in many years, we have an operating budget and a Volunteer Coordinator. As a volunteer myself, I realized one of the worst things an organization could do, is have someone volunteer their services and then never be called or informed of Club activities.

Currently, I am chair of District 7 sub-committee for developing and implementing Heath & Safety Policy, Procedures and Training by sharing our information with the other 10 Clubs in District 7.

In just one year we have started to make many positive changes. However, as an avid snowmobiler, I realize there is still much work yet to do. Issues such as reducing road running, bypassing wet areas such as swamps, map boxes on trails, gas location signs on trails need to be addressed. One of my goals is to make our trails more inviting to our permit buyers and visitors to our trail system. We need to start looking at our trails as if we are new to the area and rely on user friendly trails, signage, and information.

We have identified and have plans in place for some of the work that we need to do. Some of these projects are quite large and costly. Therefore, your continued support through volunteering and purchasing of trail permits with our Club will be greatly appreciated. Some projects will also rely on Government and OFSC funding, as well as DFO, MNR, and landowner agreements. These improvements may not happen overnight, but I am committed to doing everything possible to make them happen ASAP. It is my hope that you will start to see some change during our 2008/2009 season.

When you look back to the grass roots of snowmobiling, you see that it was all about a few riders getting together for a day of fun and camaraderie. Experiencing together, what nature has to offer in the winter months by charting new routes to get to and from their favorite destinations.

As more people became involved and traffic increased, the development of trails and grooming equipment began. Thus, began Organized Snowmobiling.

Our pioneers of organized snowmobiling worked as a team to form Clubs, organize social events, promote community spirit, and invented new ways to build and maintain connecting trail systems.

These pioneers will tell you how they use to groom trails by pulling old bed springs behind their snowmobiles and that back in the grass roots days, it was a team effort with almost everyone working together.

As snowmobiling evolved, a new generation of snowmobilers emerged with expectations of wide, smooth, well signed, scenic groomed trails that would be there and ready for use, when they arrived. It appears that no longer can we claim that snowmobiling is a total team effort.

Many Clubs including ours, have only 1 to 2 percent of Club Members who actively volunteer their time and skills, and or come out to support Club events. That is only 16 people ( some of whom are our remaining pioneers ) for maintaining 300kms of trails and supporting various functions. For many riders, their involvement ends at the time of their trail permit purchase. While supporting the Club by purchasing a trail permit is truly appreciated and needed, this philosophy has changed the future of the sport.

Other things that have changed over the years that have a negative impact to our trails are our climate, snowmobile design, and rider attitudes.

Our climate is warmer now and more unpredictable than in earlier years. While we still receive more than adequate snow fall, ( 18ft in Muskoka this past season ), we do not have the cold temperatures early & during the season on a regular basis that we require to sustain ideal day to day riding conditions.

Snowmobiles manufacturers have concentrated more & more over the years on performance of snowmobiles. We now have sleds that are powered by engines in excess of 900cc’s, have improved suspensions, steering, and come equipped with tracks that are named ripsaw. These sleds are built for speed.

When these sleds run through our trail system, they do exactly what they were built to do – - – - travel at excessive speeds over 50km/hr, tear up freshly groomed trails like a ripsaw and cause moguls and banks on the trails.

Attitude of many snowmobilers today is different than years ago. Snowmobiling as I mentioned earlier was a chance for family and friends to get out and enjoy nature with one another. Often stopping to enjoy the scenery and even pulling over to warm by a fire or have a small meal over the fire. Some of today’s snowmobilers, are more concerned with how fast they can make it from point “A” to point “B” with little or no concern for the families ( with children ) that still enjoy riding on the trails within their means, the environment they are in, and observing the legal speed limit.

Keep in mind – - – Riding on OFSC trails is a privilege, not a right.

While trail permit revenue helps offset Club operating costs and capital equipment purchases and maintenance, a clubs survival is still dependant on the generosity of volunteers, landowners and community spirit. It’s important to note that the fact trail permits have not increased in price for four years now & will not see an increase for the 2008/09 season, operating costs have steadily increased. Just look at the price of fuel over the last four years.

Last season, the Club’s cost ( payable to the OFSC ) for a seasonal permit was $91.38. When you paid $180.00 for your OFSC Trail Permit, only $88.62 was actual Club revenue.

It is also important to note the words “help offset” as clubs cover operating costs through trail permit revenues, donations, volunteer efforts, marketing, and fund raising initiatives.

A dilemma clubs now face is – - – , how can we continue to meet the expectations of this new generation, while operating in the framework developed by the previous generation?

How much are snowmobilers prepared to pay for this modern trail system that they demand? How long will the community spirited club volunteers continue to serve the sport, and will they have replacements when they retire?

Unless we change some of these mind sets, and we continue to believe that we have done our part of contributing to our Club by purchasing a trail permit, the sustainability and future of snowmobiling in Ontario will be in jeopardy.

We now have a Club Volunteer Coordinator, we now have volunteer job information and sign up sheets available on our website. All we need now is for Club members to sign up. You will be embraced. Remember, this is your Club. This Board has made great strides this past year by being more involved with the community, our neighboring clubs, and with one another. We have improved on our administration side and cost management. All we need now is to concentrate more on improving our trails and marketing. To do this we need you. We are not alone. Almost all other clubs are noticing a declining volunteer base. Remember we are “Powered by Permits and Driven by Volunteers”.

I take my hat off to our Board of Directors & the few volunteers that we have for their hard work, the pride that they take in their work, their continuing commitment to this Club, and their friendship.

Our Annual General meeting was held on June 6, 2008. I would like to welcome new Directors Kevin Mertens and Wayne Winterbottom to the Snowcrest Riders Snowmobile

Club Board of Directors. I would also like to thank outgoing directors Carl Hallett and Mark Newell for their efforts and support over the last few years.

We have volunteer information sheets available on our website. I encourage each one of you to consider volunteering and maybe sign up with a friend or family member.   If you have a son or daughter that would like to help with you,  Snowcrest Riders supports the 40 hour community service program for high school students. Check the volunteer box on your 2009 Permit Application Form

Thank you everyone for your continued support.  I look forward to meeting many of you on our trails and at our fund raising / social events.

My wife has just informed me that her sled is ready to go, and my sled still needs a wash shine.  Get the wax & cloths back out dear  – - – - you just did mine.

And to think I didn’t want identical sleds.