8212_MSA_December2022-R1

MSA Club News

else would take over and he wanted to keep the club going. It was sometimes a love/hate relationship. He obviously loved what he did but sometimes got discouraged because he had so much energy and the others couldn’t keep up with his ambitious ideas and plans. Mark sent out texts and arranged work groups every Sunday morning, he dealt with dissat isfied landowners, and he worked tirelessly keeping the groomers and drags in working order. You could always find him on ITS 89 and other trails grooming or in the Tucker garage working. Mark has spent much time doing the paperwork for the equipment and municipal grants each year. He will continue to help out in those areas. He is not leaving us high and dry but will take on the role of assistant trail master, helping trail master Jake McAlister, among other duties. Mark was pre sented with a Thank you plaque for his years of service. Thanks again Mark for your long tenure as president. The December 21 st meeting will include the traditional Holiday pot luck. We always have plenty of delicious food to share. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday and will have an equally great and safe Christ mas holiday. Leah Frechette, Club reporter Hello, It’s snowing out as I write this. We have a couple of inches on the ground and the fore cast out doesn’t show too much promise until late next week. We continue to work on the trails every Sunday and not to sound like a broken record we would welcome anyone that would like to join us to help out. We meet at George Berry’s garage 132 Miles Square Road Phillips every Sunday morning at 8 AM. At our past meeting we had in November, the usual issues were discussed and we had a special guest Betsy Squibb from High Peaks Alliance and she discussed some upcoming trail opportunities in the Franklin County area. Well, that’s about all for now. Think Snow and hopefully we will be able to get out on the trails before long. David Greely, Vice President EASTERN REGION Hi to all, Quadcounty SC has had a busy month, in November. We served Hunters breakfasts, the first three Saturdays and we served about 170 people at our free Thanksgiving Dinner. Our volunteer kitchen crew has really done on out standing job, serving some delicious food to the local community. It has certainly grown each year with this being our 8th year doing the free dinner. We want to thank everyone for the donations toward the dinner. Quadcounty SC has been busy this month working on grooming equipment during the week and cutting brush and building small bridges on Sundays. I joke about our “Medi care Trail Crew” but we need some or a lot of younger people to help on the trails. We are waiting for an order of planks and timbers to be sawed and then will be rebuilding a col lapsed bridge in Kossuth on ITS105. We will need younger people and more people to help on that day, we will keep you informed on the date after timber arrive! Your slow typing reporter, Kevin MOOSEHEAD RIDERS sc Greenville, ME Find us on Facebook SNOWMOBILES AND SLED DOG TEAMS ON SHARED TRAILS or “WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT NORTH FRANKLIN sc Phillips, ME Find us on Facebook QUAD COUNTY sc Springfield, ME

ATHLETES THAT RUN NAKED, EAT RAW MEAT AND SLEEP IN THE SNOW” Looking through the various club postings there is little information available to snow mobile operators in Maine relating to sharing a trail with a sled dog team. Many of our trails are either the training location used by mush ers or the actual race route on certain days. For example, the 110 connector (KI Rd.) and ITS 85/86 trails in the Greenville area from the AMC property at the Little Lyford Lodge turnoff to the town of Greenville will be the location of a 70 and 35 mile Wilderness Sled Dog Race on Saturday, February 4, 2023. So as machine operators what are a few things we should know relating to trail etiquette? Dog teams are trained to stay right or move right when approached from the opposite direction. So, if you must stop your machine find a spot off the trail for this reason. When passing them, slow down and be prepared for the inexperienced dog that may step out of line. Dog teams may be traveling the trail in either direction going and returning from the race midpoint. If approaching a dog team from behind, wait for the musher to wave you by. How ever, when approaching a blind intersection be ready for anything as the team may be unpre pared for your arrival or they may be tempted to take the shortest distance around a turn. Snowmobilers pacing a race team can create a dangerous situation and may even disqualify them from the race. Likewise, loud noises and yelling even to applause the team’s progress can cause an unnecessary distraction espe cially at road crossings with traffic. Sled dog race routes are signed with a red marker on the left or right side of the trail indicating a turn for them in that direction is needed. One marker is at the turn and another 100’ before the turn as the lead dog arrives at the turn well before the musher. Green mark ers on the right side of the trail tell the musher they going in the correct direction. Teams are typically 10 dogs harnessed as duals pulling a sled with a musher, however, this can vary. The Greenville race sees 30 entries per race event starting early in the morning with the least experienced teams often finishing after dark. Once dark, the lead dog will have a red collar light and the musher a bright headlamp. The lead dog is chosen as the smartest as it takes the commands and keeps the remain der of the team in line. You will never hear a “mush” command. “Gee” is the instruction for the team to turn right and “Haw” for turn ing left. Verbal commands are the only con trol the musher has over the dog team. A sled dog race is serious business for each team. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars are awarded to the teams with the shortest race times The dogs are athletes not pets. While they may take a rest along the trail, it is inappropriate for snowmobilers to call the dogs, pet or feed them or scare them with excessive speed or sound. Many dog booties will be lost along the route. This is anticipated and the musher will have replacements available on-board. You need not attempt to return them to the teams. Slower dog teams must yield to overtaking faster teams during most of the race course. Emergencies can occur where a dog is injured or too tired to continue. They will be disqualified if they do not bring that dog back on their sled. Only provide aid if requested by the musher. Occasionally the musher could be separated from a run-a-way team. This is an emergency where you may be able to aid. There will be race officials wearing reflec tive vests or arm bands at road crossings, intersections and other strategic locations who are in touch with race headquarters if you have information or questions relating to the race. The musher will be wearing a race bib. The bib color and number identify them when necessary. Hopefully some or all of this information

ROCK-O-DUNDEE RIDERS Oxford, ME

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NORWAY TRACKERS Norway, ME Find us on Facebook norwaytrackerssnowmobileclub@gmail.com Hello Sledders, It’s been wonderful seeing such a large turn out at our meetings this season. We have also had good turnouts at our trail work sessions. Thank you to everyone for their support and participation. Special thanks to Bancroft Con tracting for their large donation to our club and Double TT Fence for donating some fence work. We are very fortunate to have strong community support and a very well-rounded membership base with many talents. Family and business memberships have been steadily rolling in. Special thanks to those who have sent in additional donations. This is certainly very much appreciated and goes a long way toward ensuring our equip ment is ready to roll when the white stuff gets here. We have scheduled our light parade for Feb ruary 4 th and our open house for February 18 th .

Hi there! At our October meeting there was a lot of discussion about the new trail to Applebee’s Restaurant. Our club plans on working along with the Norway Trackers S.C. to make it hap pen. We also talked about the reroutes that had to be made for trails in the Oxford area. Work has been done on a lot of the bridges and trails. Our November meeting was such a dis appointment. Only 5 people showed up... so we had to cancel. (Not enough for a quo rum) What’s going on? Where are you? Was EVERYONE hunting???? Our Sunshine girl was there with the MOST DELICIOUS BROWNIES....WE SPLIT THEM! We at Rock-O-Dundee Riders want to wish you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a safe and HAPPY NEWYEAR! Just heard the weather.....SNOW this week! Terri Major, Secretary ANDOVER SNOW VALLEY SNO-GOERS Andover, ME Another month has gone by; we are closer to the white stuff. The days are shorter, and the nights get longer. As of this writing, there are 35 days 14 hours and 34 minutes to the official opening of the Andover trail system. TRAIL CLOSURE NOTICE EFFEC TIVE IMMEDIATELY due to an active logging operation, from Sawyer Notch to C-Pond (route 15) and Moody Mt to South Arm will be closed for the season. The roads will be plowed from East-B Hill to Moody Mt & Sable Mt. There’s no reroute available, the only trail to Upton and New Hampshire this year will be ITS 82. We have a new destination to sled to, thank you to Rusty and Lisa Parker they have opened up their land and made a trail up to their look out for all of us to enjoy. It’s worth the ride once you are up there, however you will have to turn around and come back down. We will have signage up and more information regard ing directions on our web site and Facebook page soon. As always please respect landown ers and stay on marked trails. All trails are closed until December 15. Some Good News, we’ve been working on getting our warming hut up and running this year, stay tuned to for more information regarding upcoming events! Our plans cur rently are to have the hut open on Saturday & Sundays from 10am to 2pm. We are also look ing to have it open on Christmas and February Vacation for the kid-os to enjoy a place to go. We also have built a new bridge on our Loop Trail; we have re-planked some of the other bridges and we are in the process to building a new lean to on our groomer garage. We have replaced and added more to our trail signage, we are hoping that this will help any new rider to the area. Administrator Sherry Donovan Greetings all, We had a great November meeting with the usual group present. The trial of starting the meetings at 6 pm seemed to work (at least for those that were present!). We continue to gather and submit memberships. Trail work is ongoing and the group contin ually meets Sunday mornings at the Tucker garage at 0800. Two of the three bridges need ing repairs are almost completed. The gas Tucker was sold early November, leaving us with the diesel Tucker. Alternating drivers and the trails covered will work for our small club and will be less maintenance and expense. The new Ski-doo Expedition arrived in November and will be used to groom secondary trails. A big THANK YOU goes to past president Mark Fox. He has been the president for the past 15-17 years (we have lost count). Many of those years was out of necessity as no one STREAKED MOUNTAINEERS sc Buckfield, ME

Follow us on Facebook for updates. We look forward to seeing you there. Be sure to join in the snow dances at your holiday parties. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Dan Trouant, Club Reporter Members of the Norway Trackers decorated and donated a tree to be raffled off at the Oxford Hills Festival of Trees. Happy Holidays to everyone, Cold temps have been setting us all up for some good, solid bases before the snow arrives. There’s been so much getting done by the volunteers with brushing, signage, and bridge repairs, etc. Thank you to the guys who get out there every year to get things done and thanks to all the new volunteers who have stepped up to contribute. We’re looking forward to our annual club Christmas party at the Old Saco Inn on Wednesday, December 14th. Keep an eye on your mailboxes for your invites! Many clubs have been facing trail changes and are doing the best they can so please be patient and respectful as we deal with all our landowners. They are our first priority and we need to make sure their requests are taken care of. Thank you to all our old (and new) landowners. None of this would be possible without your support! Enjoy the trails and please respect our land owners by staying on the trails, ride safe and stay to the right. I hope that everyone has a safe and happy holiday season! Sincerely, FRYEBURG AREA SNOWMOBILE ASSOCIATION Fryeburg, ME

Bridget Gorton Club Secretary

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