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Snowmobile clubs looking for their dues

Sledders refusing to pay clubs for grooming, facilities; one club will stop grooming at the end of the month Unless snowmobilers change their attitudes and start chipping in to support local clubs and their efforts to groom trails and maintain parkin

Sledders refusing to pay clubs for grooming, facilities; one club will stop grooming at the end of the month

Unless snowmobilers change their attitudes and start chipping in to support local clubs and their efforts to groom trails and maintain parking lots, it’s going to be a bumpy ride for trail users.

Both the Pemberton Valley Snowmobile Club and the Powder Mountain Snowboard Club are attempting to pass some of their own costs onto the sledders using the trails. The clubs have secured the right to maintain and manage the Rutherford and Brandywine trail networks through agreements with the Ministry of Forests. But their reception so far has been mixed at best, with some snowmobilers refusing to pay.

The clubs are discouraged, but believe trail users will warm up to the fees once they understand why they are necessary.

That might be too late for one trail area. Don Gamache of the Pemberton Valley Snowmobile Club, says the group will stop grooming trails at the end of February unless things change in the next few weeks.

"Up in the Rutherford, the club has had a forest service management agreement to look after the Rutherford trails – and what we’re trying to do is to groom it once a week to keep the trail from becoming a mogul field," said Gamache. "And what we’re getting is a bunch of guys who figure they shouldn’t be paying. They’re blowing past the girl we have at the bottom, she’s getting verbally abused and all the rest of it."

The PVSC pays anywhere from $1,000 to $1,300 a week to have the trails groomed. Although the trail is shorter this year with plows keeping the way clear for the construction of a run-of-river hydro project, the money the club saves in grooming is off-set by the increased cost of getting the machine to the trail head, says Gamache.

Some of that money, up to $300 a week, also goes towards paying the pass seller at the parking lot – not a lot considering the conditions and the abuse she puts up with, said Gamache.

The PVSC has had a management agreement with the Ministry of Forests for the past five years. Under that agreement the club is responsible for maintaining the trails. According to Gamache, that means an estimated $18,000 a year for grooming, maintaining the emergency hut, and trail building and repairing during the summer months.

In the past couple of years the club has paid $25,000 to build a new section of trail making the Pemberton Ice Cap more accessible. They also put another $20,000 into the emergency shelter.

The groomer typically maintains 23 km of trail from the parking lot, although this year that has been reduced by the hydro project construction.

While Gamache says about 90 per cent of users have been willing to pay a user fee, the 10 per cent that are refusing to pay is impacting the club’s ability to finance the trail’s upkeep. Although there’s a wide variety of people that are finding ways around the trailhead or refusing to pay, the most noticeable group is the younger snowmobilers who use their machines to access the backcountry for riding and filming.

The cost of a daily trail pass from the PVSC is currently $20 for non-members and $10 for members, although the club may put both rates at $10 in the future.

The ideal situation would be for all users to purchase a membership in the PVSC for $70. In addition to insurance and a membership in the B.C. Snowmobile Federation, the dues help to pay for trail work, says Gamache. More members are also needed to lobby to keep areas like the Rutherford open to the growing number of snowmobilers in the area.

"The volume out there has steadily doubled every year," said Gamache. "The Revelstoke Grooming Society figured out that it costs about five dollars every time you ride your sled up the trail for grooming. That comes out of machine time later on."

Since the club can’t continue to make up the difference, Gamache says the club will likely give up its management agreement at the end of the month. The club will help to start and pay for the creation of a grooming society similar to the group in Revelstoke, but they no longer want to be responsible for maintaining and insuring the trails, and collecting the money.

The only thing that could change their minds, says Gamache, is an influx of new members.

"People have to get used to the user pay system out here," he said. "In Ontario and Quebec, you have to register your sled and a have a yearly license and a yearly trail pass. In the U.S., people are used to paying. In some places in the Interior of B.C. you can’t get on the trail without a day use pass.

"People around here have had it free for so long, they don’t realize what’s going on out there," he said.

"The club at this time is so fed up that we will cease to be grooming at the end of the month."

The Powder Mountain Snowmobile Club signed an agreement with the Forest Ministry this year, and just started to charge people to use the Brandywine trails two weeks ago. The club also believes a user pay system is inevitable to keep trails open and in good shape for the public.

"There’s a commercial operator there who is currently being abused by snowmobilers. He’s running a business, he’s a good guy, and he’s been very co-operative over the years," said PMSC president Nelson Bastien.

"When all the big guns out there, including me, show up with two-inch paddles you chew his trails all to hell. It causes him extra work to go back and groom, and why should he have to do that?"

Bastien says a portion of the money collected will go to Blackcomb Snowmobiles to help pay for grooming and maintenance, including the maintenance of the parking lot areas. The club has also created first aid caches in the backcountry, and with funding hopes to build a backcountry cabin and a safe passage through the avalanche area that leads to the Pemberton Ice Cap.

So far the reception to the pay system has been poor, says Bastien, and he acknowledges that it’s partly the PMSC’s fault.

"Instead of putting an ad in the paper and warning people, letting them know what was coming, because of the time and because of the cost, we just started collecting. We made a couple of cardboard signs… parked ourselves out there and said ‘hey guys, you have to start paying for trail passes’. You wouldn’t believe the shit we’re taking."

Bastien says about half of trail users are being rude, refusing to pay or paying less than the $10 fee, although he is seeing some improvement as people are getting used to the arrangement.

"They’re beginning to understand, it’s just been a bit of an educational thing," said Bastien. "The reality has hit them a little. I’ve been harping on about this since I was the originator of this snowmobile club 14 years ago – if we don’t stay together as a group and lobby, we’re going to get frozen out."

Bastien says more people need to join the PMSC to help the club improve the trails and enhance access, but also to increase the number of members in the B.C. Snowmobile Federation. Of the estimated 70,000 snowmobilers in the province, only 8,000 are members of the federation.

As a result, says Bastien, snowmobilers are in danger of losing access into areas where there’s a conflict with other user groups.

"It doesn’t cost as much to join one of these alpine groups as it does to snowmobile, and they have a large lobby. They can go to government with a list of 15 or 20 times as many users as we can," said Bastien, who has been involved with the Sea to Sky Backcountry Forum for the past two years. "Numbers matter, and right now we need numbers."

The PMSC is offering $5 day passes to members, as well as season passes to use the Brandywine trail system.

To join the PMSC, you can go to the trail head or drop by the club’s next monthly meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 18 at Myrtle Philip Community Centre.

If you live in the Pemberton area and are interested in supporting a Pemberton Grooming Society, give your name to Al Bush at Valley Chainsaw and Recreational.