8944-R1_MSA_January2025_Newsletter

MSA Club News

Bethel and Evans Notch or the New Hamp shire border:

and our trails. You can come by sled or car. We are pleased to announce that our new updated trail maps are available. They are free to members or may be purchased. Congratulations to all the winners of the Super Raffle drawing. The Norway Trackers sold at least two winning tickets. Thank you to everyone who purchased tickets for your support. We are planning club trail rides and other events. The town hall is remodeling so our remaining meetings will not be held there. Follow our Facebook posts and emails for updates on meetings, rides, trail reports, and other information. Think snow, Dan Trouant, Club Reporter The December 13th meeting of the Pleasant Mountain Snowmobile Club, at the Bridgton Community Center, started off at 5:30PM with the serving of Cheese and Crackers, shrimp, canapés and punch, followed by the Fabulous Pot Luck Supper at 6PM. VP Bob Corthell started the business meet ing at 6:45 with the Pledge of allegiance. He then asked everyone in the room to introduce themselves. Bob reported that President Blaine Chapman was at home, recovering from knee surgery, and doing well. Bob reported that trail work on Sundays has been super successful, due to great Coopera tion from volunteers. 28 Culverts have been installed on ITS 89, Woods Pong and Moose Pond trails, and most of the signing has been done. Memberships and trail maps have already been mailed. At the MSA Directors meeting in Holden, Bob and Mary learned a study determined that Maine was # 3 in the USA for snowmobiling. Yellowstone was #2 and Michigan was #1. The Pleasant Mountain SC sold the second most Super Raffle Tickets in the entire State of Maine. Wow! Congratulations to all who put in the work to sell all of those tickets! The Club Poker Rally is scheduled for Feb ruary 15, 2025. The meeting was adjourned at 7:10 for the annual Christmas Party and Yankee Gift Exchange which is always a lot of fun. Each Club member brought a $20 gift marked “male” “female” or “either”, and then drew a number from a bag, that set the sequence of the gift selections. When your number is called you select a gift and open it. You have a choice to keep the gift or “Go Shopping” to exchange your gift with one already selected. It is amazing how many times some of the more popular items can change hands in one night! A Great Time was had by all! The first meeting of the New Year will be on January 10th, 2025 at The Bridgton Commu nity Center on Depot Street. The Fabulous Pot Luck Supper begins at 6PM followed by the business meeting at 6:45. Come learn about upcoming Club events: including the Club Rally, and final discussion for the Club Trips. All are welcome! Hope to see you there, Bill Preis PMSC Club Correspondent 207-647-2847 To See dozens of photos and vid eos—go to: https://www.facebook.com/ bridgtoneasyridersclub/ Our trailmaster and head groomer have been working hard since the Fall in repair ing bridges, clearing trails, and maintaining equipment. They have almost 200 volunteer hours in, and we owe them a great deal of grat itude! We are ready to open as soon as we have enough snow. However, we have an important announce ment that will affect anyone riding between WILD RIVER RIDERS Gilead, ME PLEASANT MOUNTAIN sc Bridgton, ME Bridgtoneasyriders.com See us on Facebook

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Most importantly, we are a small but vibrant community up here in Ebeemee… we know how to do it up right! Not fancy, just fun! Come on up and have some Smileage! Laurie Plourde, President

We got out and cleared a few good-sized blow-downs before the first round of snow. We have a few inches on the ground but have not yet been out to start grooming or check for more downed trees. Last year our first groom ing operations were on January 14 th and we are hoping to beat that this year. We received the first of our two new side by side drags on December 22 nd . This drag was new last year but needed some rework and a redesign of the hydraulics. We will be getting the hydraulics wired and hooked up so that drag will be ready to go. Hopefully the second will arrive by the first of the year. The regional C4 map will be available from participating clubs and at the Rome Town Hall. The map is centered on the Readfield-Bel grade-Manchester area and covers 25 different clubs. Our meetings are the second Tuesday of the month September to April, 7:00 PM at the Rome Town Hall. All are welcome. Greetings All, There is snow on the ground as I write this, but in typical weather fashion in recent years, there is warm weather and rain in the forecast. Club members have been out work ing on the trails and getting them ready to ride when snow conditions allow us to open them up. The club had its annual Christmas party, hosted by the Shaws. It was very well attended by 21 members, young and old alike. As always, there was plenty of delicious food, great conversations, and fun opening gifts. The club is also working on having another training session with our rescue boggan. Each year we work to create a realistic situation so we can execute a rescue in an efficient man ner. God forbid we ever have to use the res cue boggan but in case we do, we want to be as prepared as possible. So, having said that, pray for snow and ride safely. By the time you read this we will be in the year 2025 so I hope everyone had a nice Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year. Roberta Kemp, President WESTERN REGION FRYEBURG AREA SNOWMOBILE We had our first ever Club Christmas Cock tail Party at 302 West Restaurant last month and it was a great time! Thank you for all the good food and tasty cocktails! It was a great opportunity to treat our hard working volun teers for all that they do. Thank you everyone! Our annual Poker Rally will be held on Sat urday, February 22nd, 2025 at the North Frye burg Community Chapel. Please come by to show your support whether on snowmobile or by car. Everyone and anyone is welcome to join us! Here’s hoping we get some good snow so we can get out there and enjoy the trails very soon! Sincerely, COCHNEWAGAN TRAILBLAZERS Monmouth, ME ASSOCIATION Fryeburg, ME Hello all, I’m hoping everyone had a great holiday season and a Happy New Year! NORWAY TRACKERS Norway, ME Find us on Facebook norwaytrackerssnowmobileclub@gmail.com Happy New Year, We received some early snow that for the most part has frozen up and stayed hopefully providing a good base for our trails. Our crews have spent a tremendous amount of time prep ping our trails for a season of smooth riding. Our open house is planned for Saturday February 1st on ITS 89 at the Sodom Road field and trail intersection. We are planning to have food, groomer rides, and a poker rally. We welcome everyone to come meet our crew Bridget Gorton Club Secretary

GRAND LAKE sc Grand Lake Stream, ME

It snowed the night of our December meet ing, so we did not have one. Most club mem bers plow snow, sand, shovel, repair equip ment, and are out straight during a storm and wet and cold after one. There was no import ant club news that had to be acted on, so the meeting was called off. I’m going to repeat this story because of its importance. The club has placed two Work Hours Notebooks at the Pine Tree Store. One is for State Trail System Work and the other for our Club Trail System Work. Each is well organized with sections. Take a look and please use. Les wants us to realize, Example: If you are sent out to clear/chain saw downed trees from blocking a trail and the round-trip job took 6 hours. Please do not record in the work note book, 6 hours chain saw. Estimate actual chain saw cutting hours and record that. Record your remaining hours accordingly. You all hopefully know, that there is a heli copter emergency rescue pad near Elsemore Landing (see GPS info below). There now is also one at Stone Dam. I will get you GPS info soon. The Amazon Road rescue pad is still in the works. Les works almost every day. If you don’t and you’re looking for something to do, talk to Les. He will find you and members in your group something nice to do out on the trail. 12/24/24: We lost our base, actually every thing, with the warm temperature and rain we had a week ago. My guess is the snow dust ings we’ve had since then has covered 50% of the ground with 1” ice. We got 6” of light powdery snow today. This powdery snow will compress daily and develop into a nice base. It may not matter. I heard warmer air tempera tures and rain is coming soon. It would be nice if we miss the rain and end up with a nice base. It would be nicer if the rain that’s coming ends up being snow. RAFFLE: The club has raffled off the same type great items for the last few years. This year’s plan is to change it up. Stay tuned to see what the club comes up with. Please tell Les about any idea you might have. Tickets will be sold at the Pine Tree Store when all is confirmed. SIGNAGE: This is a big topic with snow mobile state officials. Correct signage will give you information, direction, make you safer and more. We hear our signage is good. However, Les says we can be even better by adding new signs, repair damaged signs, improve sign display by brushing, add STOP signs, and install any type signage that will make snowmobile travel easier and safer. So, gather some friends. Plan a lunch. Let Les know your available for work. SLED WORK: Les needs you. He has all equipment ready for the winter, but will need you to make equipment improvements as the winter month’s roll along. GROOMER TRAINING: Think about this. Les will train one member at a time, on our well-equipped, professional groomer, the Snow Rabbit. That way once trained, a 2-per son trained groomer team with all their food and supplies, could take the groomer out to do important trail grooming work, approved by Les, for as long as planned. If you are inter ested enough to start training, please talk to Les. Thank you everyone for taking the time to read about our snowmobile club and our special little town. Please ride our trails and make our town your town and stop on your snowmobile adventure. 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

The U. S. Forest Service has closed a bridge in the Bog Brook training area due to safety concerns. That means that a portion of our National Forest trail will be closed between our park and ride and Wheeler’s Mine. There will be no access between Bethel (gas) and the Evans Notch / NH area unless you use our North Road trail, which has two one-half mile road detours. We have multiple agencies look ing for a solution to this bridge closure, but for now, we’ve been asked to close the trail. Please respect our landowners and comply with all trail signage. We will post any additional updates on our Facebook page (@RideGilead) If you have any questions, please contact me. Carol Bourque Secretary / Treasurer EASTERN REGION It just doesn’t seem possible that we are now in the year 2025, does it? Time keeps spinning faster and faster in this world of ours. Here’s hoping everyone had an amaz ing Christmas/holiday season and was able to experience all that they wished for… Hmmm, so I am writing this on Wednesday December 11, 2024. The forecast is for a warmup. It is currently raining outside and 33°. The ground is covered with about 10” of snow. The pond in front of us is frozen…but wet. Just like last year on December 18 th . We all remember how that turned out! Mother Nature took a turn at an “I gotcha” moment. The snow left, the ice left and the Gauntlet Bridge left. Your Ebee mee Snowmobile Club folks are sweating a little bit with this storm! The bridge has been repaired extensively, new decking, new sup ports. It’s better than ever and we all hope it rides the storm out right where it sits! It has been securely cabled off on both ends (just as the last one was!). You know what’s different about this time? We have another advocate up there in heaven watching over this situation. Keep that bridge safe Rick! I’m hoping by the time this shows up in your mailboxes, the trails are open and being groomed on a regular basis and the B-Me Snack Shack is open every Saturday with Ms. Susan serving up some great food and cama raderie. https://maps.app.goo.gl/rMXkwd fkxxAAXUdQ7 This is our adventure folks! Let’s make some great memories, friends and Smileage. We are all in this together! Keep your eyes peeled for updates on the trails and openings. You know, there is always something to do up here. If ever you want to put your mark on this club, please reach out and we will happily give you a job to do! My bet is you are going to walk away with an all-over good feeling for contributing your time to something you love to do. Truly, many hands make light work! We are hoping to add some kids’ sweat shirts to our merchandise this year as well as insulated tumblers. We are always looking for suggestions or new ideas for things at the snack shack. Shoot us an email at ebeemee avk@gmail.com or ebeemeesc@gmail.com with suggestions or ideas. (Me, personally, I love popcorn.) Memberships, Adopt-A-Trails, clothing, donations etc. are all available at our Shopify store located on our website. EBEEMEE sc Ebeemee Twp, ME

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