8620-R1_MSA_February2024_Newsletter_Web

MSA Club News

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FRYEBURG AREA SNOWMOBILE ASSOCIATION Fryeburg, ME

President Blaine Chapman opened the busi ness meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. Craig Sharkey, Owner of Sharkey Graphics (SGS, Producer and printer of the nine-town Lake Region Snowmobile Trail Map) stepped in briefly to thank the Club for its support. Blaine Chapman reported we now have 121 Family Members, 26 Business Members. There was considerable rain damage to ITS80 – culverts plugged, many trees down, protruding rocks with no gravel around them, but after some major trail work it is now ride able. Groomers and drags are all ready to go out. The Club replaced/repaired 6 bridges this fall. Of those, only 1 got moved in a recent storm. All were cabled in place, which paid off. While snow has been minimal so far this year, The groomers were out on January 18th. There are many water bars so ride with cau tion until colder weather freezes the ground. Trip Report – Steve Emery, Trip Coordi nator, reported that 43 Club members have signed up for Millinocket. We are all doing our snow dances. Bob Corthell, Vice-President, reported that he and Mary, along with Steve LoPriore, attended the December MSA meeting. They also attended the January MSA meeting, along with Bill and Jean Preis. BER won a plaque for selling the second most Super Raffle Tick ets, for the second year in a row. The Club also won the Lucky Dog Contest with a prize of $500. The Club’s annual Rally, originally sched uled for February 17 th 2024, has been can celled. We plan to hold our Rally again in another year. MSA has been notified of the change. Bill Preis said that after 35 years coordinat ing the regional snowmobile map, he will need help to produce next year’s map and would like to find someone who he could train and mentor to eventually take on that responsi bility. Ray Uttaro promptly volunteered. The meeting was adjourned at 8 PM. The next meetings of Bridgton Easy Rid ers will be on Friday, February 9th, 2024 and March 8th, 2024 at The Bridgton Community Center: 6:00 PM Fabulous Pot Luck Supper, followed by a business meeting at 6:45. Hope to see you there, Bill Preis BER Club Correspondent PEJEPSCOT SNO-CHIEFS Lisbon Falls, ME Find us on Facebook Greetings from Pejepscot Sno-Chiefs! The rough start to our 2024 season has proved challenging, but oh boy have the guys and gals been trying to get the trails back in business! They all deserve a HUGE shoutout for all their dedication and hard work, and it looks like it will continue for some time to come! Pizza was on the menu at the regular Janu ary meeting at the clubhouse, discussion cen tered mostly on the trails and this season’s pro jection. The traveling Botma bridge was once again put back in place and this time secured with a cable. Steve checked out a possible new location to hopefully replace the lost trail by the disc golf place, but alas, the area turned out to be too low. The Safe trail was cleaned up, but other trails have massive work to be done because of downed trees, bridge repair, etc. So, in other words, lots more work and lots more help needed! Hearing the guys describe the trails is pretty discouraging. On a better note, we were planning a club family friendly event for Feb 11th, at the club house, complete with bonfire, cookout, and a sleigh ride! Should be a fun winter activity, I will report next month! To all my Pejepscot Sno-Chiefs family, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the lovely memorial bracelet in honor of my once in a lifetime heart dog, Ainsley. You all knew how much it hurt to lose her. I don’t know if you realize how much that beautiful gesture means to me. Love you all! Until next time, please stay safe, maybe find a way to enjoy winter in Maine and hopefully find a trail somewhere that’s open to ride! Respectfully submitted, Libby Nilsen, Club Reporter

inches of rain, we lost a 90 ft bridge on ITS 115, the bridge is ok just has to be moved, the rush of the water was so high it was over the bridge and removed its blocks and washed away soil. We have a temporary re-route for this bridge till fix is done. Then we discovered another bridge that also lost its footing. This bridge was addressed on 1/20/24, all bridge material was brought up on 1/15/24. We put out a Help, Help, Help, on our Facebook account, and we had a good response and lots of volunteers show up. A hot lunch was served to them. Some of the volunteers helped with brushing and sign ing. It was of course the coldest day yet. We also have learned that two of our other trails will have some logging operations going on this winter. We are not the only club with these prob lems just look at Facebook and a lot of clubs are dealing with these kinds of issues. We thank all of the people who heard our request for help. MSA runs on volunteers that’s for sure, we had our 1st pot luck dinner, meeting and played some games. As always great cooks. If you are planning a trip to our area, please check our Facebook page for hours of opera tion of club house. Ride right on the trail Cathy Horne WESTERN REGION norwaytrackerssnowmobileclub@gmail.com I have just returned from this season’s first loop around our trail system. Great condi tions despite the excessive rain and minimal snow we’ve had so far this winter. We have an amazing team who gets it done from our many trail crews to the groomers and to our members who work behind the scenes. It’s been a month since the devastating Grinch storms. Our club was very fortunate to have minimal damage. Our crews were out quickly resetting bridges and clearing fallen trees. When Mother Nature came through with some freezing temperatures and snow, our trails and groomers were ready for action. We held our drawing for the ice auger at our January meeting. Thank you to everyone who purchased tickets to support our club. We raised over $450. Congratulations to our win ner and special thanks to our members who donated the auger. The Norway Trackers hosted January’s MSA monthly meeting. We had a great turn out despite the driving conditions. Thank you to everyone who attended and our kitchen crew for putting on a delicious meal and also the Norway Fire Department for donating the space. I would like to send out a special thank you to our business members for their sup port: Morse Logging, Consulting by Num bers, Knotty Pine Woodworks, Western Hills Property Group, Hillside Cottages, 290 Main St, EA Smith Plumbing and Heating, Pine Tree Paving, Snows Marine and Storage, The Lake Store, Walter Curtis Logging, Eco Heat Maine, and Williams Broadcasting. Please reach out and support them. Our park and ride is open at the Norway Lake boat launch and ready to welcome you to our neck of the woods. We have had very good turnouts at our meetings and as always everyone is welcome to attend. Watch your email and Facebook for information and updates. Enjoy the ride. Dan Trouant, Club Reporter BRIDGTON EASY RIDERS sc Bridgton, ME Bridgtoneasyriders.com See us on Facebook The January 12 th meeting was held in the Bridgton Community Center at 6:00 PM, with the usual Fabulous Pot Luck Supper, followed by the business meeting at 6:45. NORWAY TRACKERS Norway, ME Find us on Facebook

Greetings everyone, Well, we finally received enough snow to open the trails, let’s just hope it continues for several more weeks at least! With all the storm damage there will still be some trail hazards as well as trails that are closed due to the extent of damage so please be careful out there no matter what town you’re riding in. Thank you to all our groomer operators and trail maintenance volunteers who are braving the cold winter conditions in order to get to everything that needs to be done from signing and filling in water holes, etc. so folks can get out there and get some miles on. Your dedica tion means the world to so very many people. Thank you to everyone who has supported us though memberships and donations year after year. You’re all amazing! And, as always, thank you to our landowners once again! This is your final reminder that our annual poker rally will be held on Saturday, Febru ary 24th, 2024. Poker hands will be sold for $5 each between 9:00 AM-12:00 PM with winners announced and raffle prizes drawn at 3:00 PM. It will be held at the North Frye burg Community Chapel located at 1225 West Fryeburg Rd (Intersection of Rt 113 and Fish Street) so bring all your friends and join us for some good food, friends and fun! There will be posters out around town advertising this event and we hope it’s a great success. Thank you in advance to all the volunteers that help make this happen for us! We hope to see you there! Sincerely, Hello, Since writing the last Club News and all the devastation the region took with all the flood waters, I want to tell all what has transpired since. First Dana Bowman set up a meeting with all area snowmobile clubs along with inviting elected officials MSA Officers, game wardens, Joe Higgins and others. Over 90 peo ple attended and was brought up of what was out there for resources to try and recover our trails for the upcoming season. It definitely helped the first job that happened was Lee Libby and his team from our neighboring club Rangeley Lakes came down and reworked the washed-out bridge crossing Oberton Stream on ITS 89 and also redecked it. Once that was done NFSC Volunteers went in and put sac rificial running planks down and guard rails installed since this is a one lane bridge only. Bridget Gorton Club Secretary NORTH FRANKLIN sc Phillips, ME Find us on Facebook

North Franklin - ITS 89 washout

North Franklin ITS 89 grading

We had also experienced a lot of wash outs south of the bridge on ITS 89 and between Scott Schroeder on his bulldozer, Dana Bow man in his excavator and individuals hauling gravel to them they made the trail very passi ble. While this was taking place George Berry was at work on Davenport flats on ITS 89 in his excavator hauling all the debris that had accumulated by Black brook Bridge out of the trail to make it passible. We also had Topher Hunt from the Salem club working for days on ITS 84 with his excavator filling in deep holes. Dana Bowman went to the county and asked for assistance in funding to help pay the bills which they granted him. Which brings us to our Treasurer Diana busy writing checks. In the meantime, Trail Master Billy was busy trying to take care of the normal day to day operations for the club trails along with all the flood damage work performed as well. I could go on there’s a lot more I could report about but just wanted all to know the magnitude of the work that has gone on since last month and now able to ride our trail! A big Shout out goes out to all for the above and beyond work that has been done! Ride right ride safe David Greely, Vice President ROCK-O-DUNDEE RIDERS Oxford, ME Hi there! I imagine you are JUST as excited about this past snow storm as we are! Sure, looks good to see the beautiful white snow all over the yard once again. Interest is growing in our club. We had 18 adults and 2 kids at our meeting last night! AND every one of them wants to do their share. Our club is working hard to get our trails back to “good” after the devastating storm a few weeks ago. Our trail masters told us last night at our monthly meeting “We are sitting pretty good”. They don’t consider our area as devastated as the towns north of us. Even so, one of the bridges came unhooked, they saw that,fixed it. Water was over the top of the bridge. One of our snow fences was up in the trees,they climbed up, recov ered and reinstalled it. What a team we have. So proud to be a member. The latest weather report is for MORE SNOW and not so much rain...LOVE IT! Terri Major, Secretary NEW VINEYARD NORTH sc New Vineyard, ME Find us on Facebook Greetings from New Vineyard! We have snow on the ground but much more is needed to get our trails into shape. Heavy rains created some washouts but luckily all our bridges stayed in place. We are still struggling with the intervale that refuses to freeze solid at the Wattles farm. The good news is that we have been packing and grooming lightly and the trail is open from Our Village Market all the way to ITS 84 in New Portland. The trail to Porter Lake remains closed at this writing. Taylor Hill has been packed but needs more

North Franklin - ITS 89 crossing Oberton stream

North Franklin - ITS 89 finish grade of trail

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