8620-R1_MSA_February2024_Newsletter_Web

MSA Club News

snow levels are definitely below prior years but there is a lot of good riding available. Less of a snowpack often means there are smaller moguls and flatter turns. Our groomers have been out and are making all the difference. Ice in East and West Cove is getting thicker while the north end of the lake is the last to freeze. Always take precautions and ask about where lake ice is unsafe. When in doubt, don’t take a chance. Ice that has been checked will be marked with stakes on Moosehead between East and West Cove and in Rockwood between the landing and The Birches. Stay safe and ride right. Follow us on our Facebook “Moosehead Riders Snowmobile Club” for the latest trail news. Thanks for your support. Bob Ludwig, Secretary raludwig184@gmail.com SHIRLEY BOG TRAIL BUSTERS INC. Shirley, ME The big news this month is that we finally have rideable snow! The Bypass Trail is currently being groomed. Please use this trail and not the access road. A new trail has been cut on the west side of the Piscataquis River, still needs to have the sides brushed out. The logging company on the Clouse Allen Road will be moving out shortly so that we can use that again. The CCC Road is closed for the winter. Charlie Baker and Hutch Gagne are still out checking trails for washouts. There is a bad one at the beginning of the Ordway Pond Road. Trails are still changing daily. Rhonda Arey BLUE RIDGE RIDERS sc Rockwood, ME Well, the rain and wacky warm winter weather seem to be over and as I write this on January 21 st it has been in the single digits the last few mornings. Moosehead Lake has finally frozen over but is not yet safe. Remember to follow the marked trails when on the lake near Rock wood. The mouth of the river is NEVER safe. The trails from the Kineo golf course entrance are: - Red Trail- Kineo to The Birches - Blue Trail- Kineo to Misty Morning and Rockwood Cottages at the mouth of the Moose River - Yellow Trail- Kineo to the State Boat Landing - Orange Trail- connects the yellow and blue trails along the west shore. There is also open water at Hardscrabble Point at the north end of Kineo Island. The rain, snowstorms and flooding seem to have hit the entire state. We had washouts and a bridge that collapsed but hearty crews have everything cleaned up and repaired. onditions are very good considering the lack of snow, and our groomers are in full swing. We had our January meeting at Darren Mil liken’s “Megawatt Lounge” with 25 people in attendance. Thanks Darren! Next month’s meeting on the third Saturday, will also be at Darren’s place. The address is 41 Maynard Rd in Rockwood. Potluck and happy hour at six o’clock, meeting at seven. Hope to see you there! Our club members’ average age is con tinuing to get younger. Every club needs new members and we have had an influx of hard working and willing younger members. They’ve been a big help to the “old guard”. All we need is continued cold and more snow. Enjoy! Mike ORRINGTON TRAIL RIDERS Orrington, ME www.orringtontrailriders.com Welcome to our newest members! If you have lapsed, you can easily renew or join our Club right on our website listed above. We are excited to have you all. Winter is finally here for real. We have been working in earnest on trail improvements and will continue to do so through the season with a few new bridge improvements and more leveling of trails. Your riding experience will offer enjoyment

and safety even during low snow depth times. We are geared up for our Annual Vintage Snowmobile Ride In and Show for Saturday February 10thfrom 10am to 4pm. We will be having our second silent auction during the event as well. It was a huge success last year, bringing in a lot of funds towards our new groomer fund! Donations towards the fund are always welcome any time. Thanks to all. We also always want to thank our gener ous landowners. We wouldn’t exist without them. Now for some basic information. Our clubhouse is located at 262 Long Hill Road in Orrington. Our mailing address is PO Box 202, Orrington, ME 04474. Our contact phone number for our Trailmaster is 207-852-6699 and our President can be reached at 207-745 0863. You can also find us on social media. Our website has a Facebook feed right there on the home page. That’s where you will get the most updated information on our goings-on. Our meetings typically take place the first Tuesday of each month through April at 6:30pm. All are welcome. Thank you and see you soon! Laurie La Violette Treasurer EBEEMEE sc Ebeemee TWP, ME What a ride! What a ride! I’m writing this on January 5, 2024. We are all busy fixing what Mother Nature decided to undo. First casualty we found was the Pocomoonshine Bridge. That was picked up by high water and moved 90°. That bridge is three 16’ skidder mats attached to each other and resting on concrete abutments. It picked the bridge up and pivoted it, laying it back down on the nearest abutment. At normal water, I can almost stand up under that bridge. We got Jeff Chambers from TRAMM Con struction up in there and fixed that right away. But then, as I’m sure many of you know, Mother Nature took the bridge at Gauntlett Falls and moved it over to our bank about 70’ downstream. Jo-Mary Riders had washouts on their side and we had washouts on our side so we couldn’t even get in to inspect it for a few days. Pete and I and Jeff and Diane VanKnowe finally took the ATV’s and got around our sides washouts so we could see if the bridge was still there. You cannot imagine our dis may when we came down the trail and saw that it was gone. Pete immediately reached out to Rick Levasseur at Jo-Mary Riders to let him know we all had a BIG PROBLEM. You know, we are a determined bunch of folks up here! Good thing. Rick Levasseur got his A Team together and Pete Plourde got his A Team together. The first project was to get the bridge moved across the river so it could be evaluated and repaired. Pete Plourde, Melissa Brown and John Troyan assisted (riggers) on the ESC side and helped to get it moved across. As I write this, the bridge is now on the Jo-Mary side in a state of repair. There was a 20’ section on the Jo-Mary end that was stripped of all planking and pretty twisted. This was the old Abol snowmobile bridge and was moved down here in December of 2010. It was almost 13 years to the day! Luckily, Rick Levasseur had another 20’ of the old bridge in his secret stash out on the Parkway. So JMR brought in the much-needed replace ment 20’ section to add on to the remaining 60’. Did you catch that? Yeah, this is an 80’ steel bridge, 13’ above normal water level! Think about it!!! It came to rest on a big boul der on our bank. Mother Nature is incredible. But we all knew that didn’t we! ESC redecked that bridge two years ago using leftover materials donated when the state completed the rebuild of a bridge over the Pleasant River up here in Ebeemee Town ship. ESC put an ISO out on our Facebook page looking for the planking that was needed to redeck the new section. Thank you to everyone who responded! It was amazing. John Rouleau from up on Cedar Lake came through for us! He had some of the exact same planking from the state bridge job from two years ago! Really!! I have to say, I con tinue to be amazed at the generosity of our fel low snowmobilers. We had a number of folks sign up to inspect our trails and make sure they were cleared and ready for riding (once we get white gold on the ground). Thank you

to everyone that answered the call! There are too many to even remember them all but you know who you are and you are the ones that got out there and cleared things out for us. We are anxiously awaiting the season opener for our Snack Shack. Not sure when it will happen but rest assured, I will let you all know! Nothing like a hot meal in the fresh air and helping your little club out financially. You know, the most common thing we hear is “thank you for all you do”. I am going to say the same thing to all of you. Thank you for all you do. And on that note, remember, you can donate online anytime the urge strikes you! Our Adopt-A-Trail signs are a super fun way to make a donation and get something (besides awesome trails) back. It always makes me smile when I see our sign! We have done a lot this year and most of it is because of the incredible donors we have. Keep it coming and we’ll keep doing what we do! So, in closing, I know we are all anxious to get out there and do some grooming and rid ing. I am going to quote our dear departed friend Dave Silvia, “It will come, it always does.” Keep the faith folks, keep the faith! And remember, It’s all about the Smileage! Laurie Plourde, President Ebeemee Snow mobile Club Contact us at: ebeemeesc@gmail.com or Ebeemeeavk@gmail.com facebook.com/EbeemeeSnowmobileClub PENOBSCOT sc Hermon, ME Well not much to talk about since we still have no snow. The trail workers have been out diligently working on trails. They were down to just replacing a couple of signs and then we got the wind and rainstorm. Although not as bad as the ice storm of 98 it is still a mess. Every Trail needs to be cleaned up. But we are fortunate that we did not lose any of our bridges. Many other clubs suffered that loss as well. I encourage everyone that rides if you can find the time to RIDE. You can find the time to VOLUNTEER. It takes many hands and lots of man hours to complete the task of pre paring Trails for everyone’s riding pleasure. Please join your local Club HELP, SUPPORT, DONATE, & VOLUNTEER. Club meetings are held on the 3 rd Wednes day of the month at 6:00 pm. Deanna COASTAL REGION Hi Folks, Well, we just can’t catch a break down here in Southern Maine. Early January saw a nice storm that gave us 10” – 12” of perfect snow. Unfortunately, two days later we got one of the worst wind/rain events on record followed by another storm of the same caliber a week later. Every bit of snow was gone and our trails were under several feet of water. Plus, we had hundreds of blow-downs to clear and several bridges to put back in place. As I write this, we only have 2” of snow and all trails in Southern Maine are closed. We can only hope buy the time you read this, we’ll have gotten a little riding in down here. I’ll share some really good news though. One of the biggest obstacles for any club is getting people to volunteer. We got lucky this year as some new members have stepped up and are learning the tasks. We had a lot of new members helping with trail work and one of them, Jamie Haynes, has graciously accepted the vacant Secretary position on our executive board. Jamie will be responsible for keeping the minutes of the meetings along with help ing to keep all the knuckleheads in line during the meetings. Welcome aboard Jamie and we look forward to your input! Lastly, a couple things I always like to remind riders of, be gracious towards land owners and don’t litter. Most landowners don’t ride, so by allowing us to ride on their land means they are good people who think sharing their land is a good thing. Most do not benefit SACO PATHFINDERS sc Saco, ME Find us on Facebook

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GRAND LAKE sc Grand Lake Stream, ME

Above is the towns newest resident, Jeremy. He’s been here several months and works at the fish hatchery. He is a good person and it’s a joy when he is around. Jeremy has been on every work party that Les has organized. He also holds the secret recipe for Ma’s No Bake Chocolate Cookie Balls. He is a great addition to the town and at the last town meeting it was voted that he could stay. I walked into the Pine Tree Store this morn ing around 9:00. Les and Brinda were getting bottles of water, red hot dogs, rolls, chips, snack food, etc, ready for a trail work crew. The Usual’s started to gather. It was freezing cold, about 15°, and they were all hoping there were plenty of side x sides available. Les told everyone about the work plan. Les arranged for a ride to the backhoe. That means there must be a wash out or two. Jeremy was put in charge of the food. I think he put the big bag of red hot dogs in his huge warm coat pocket. They all looked well dressed. Let’s hope so. And then, everything went silent… Shane, Les’s grandson, has time off from FBI college and is here from Texas. He, Kaiden and Weston got a trail work assignment from Les and put in some important hours, trying to restore trails to how they were before that big Dec 18 rain/wind storm. I later heard that they went out a second time. It looks like Shane may not get a vacation. GROOMER TRAINING: Les will train members on our well-equipped, professional groomer, the Snow Rabbit. That way once trailed, a 2-person groomer team with food and supplies could be sent out to do important trail work for as long as they want. If you are interested, you know who to talk too. WORK/SIGNAGE: Les has received trail signs and is looking for several members to put them up. Some old signs need replac ing. Some signs can’t be seen and need the branches around them trimmed. You, family, and friends can make fun, work, and lunch rides out of something like this. Thank you everyone for taking the time to read about our snowmobile club and our spe cial little town. Please ride our trails and make our friendly little town a stop on your snow mobile adventures. I guarantee you will be back. mikeremillard@mgemaine.com Please take the time to cut out the below lines of information and pack it away with your registration and insurance info. You never know. RESCUE HELOCOPTER LANDING SPOT: Located at the 2nd Elsmore Landing sign (Pocumcus Lake). When the official’s GPS it, I’ll let everyone know. I found out when it snows, we’ll put red lemon aid as a dye to definitely mark the spot for helicopter pilots. HELP NEEDED: Call 796-5027, Les, Brinda, or store worker. TRAIL PROBLEM: Call 796-5027, Les. He will solve the problem. PINE TREE STORE: Hours 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM, 796-5027. NON-Ethanol Gas. Always remember, for food, drink, supplies and fun, “You can’t go wrong at The Pine Tree Store”. NEXT MEETING: Every 2nd Wednesday @ 6:00, usually at the GLS Fire Station . LODGING: Call 796-5027, Les, Brinda, or store worker. MOOSEHEAD RIDERS sc Greenville, ME Find us on Facebook Starting the month of February and the

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