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Posted: January 12, 2009
 As
soon as snow falls, calls and mails asking about open trails
inundate the OFSC. No one is more eager to start trail
riding than OFSC clubs and volunteers. if only opening
trails was as easy as just having snow... or contacting the
OFSC!
In reality, our clubs operate with finite budgets, targeted
to ensure that most grooming occurs during peak riding weeks
from early January to mid-March. Sometimes, like last
winter, the season is longer than normal and clubs juggle
dollars to get started around Christmas and also groom
longer. Often, doing so means robbing Peter to pay Paul —
for example, reallocating dollars tagged for purchasing a
much-needed replacement groomer or for trail preparation the
next fall.
Next, remember that the permit fee remains the same
throughout each season, regardless of how long, so once set
for an expected number of grooming weeks, the size of the
pie each club has for the winter at hand does not vary much.
Meanwhile, as non-profit entities, clubs have already
invested left over revenues from previous seasons into
paying down debts, down payments on new groomers, paying for
equipment repairs, or to cover additional costs, such as
grooming longer last winter. So if dollars are diverted to
unexpectedly early grooming, it's easy to see why another
area of planned trail operations may suffer.
Now, remember that trail operations show a $5 million
shortfall each season... that's the difference between
permit revenues and the actual cost of running the OFSC
provincial system. So there are no extra dollars in any pot.
And until clubs receive 2009 permit revenues to replenish
their accounts (which typically start flowing in meaningful
amounts after December 1st), every available dollar is being
spent on preparations. As a result of all the preceding,
clubs are very careful not to waste precious grooming
dollars, which brings us to premature snow and trails
opening early...
Forty years of weather/snowfall patterns and club experience
clearly indicate that snow prior to Christmas will not last
in much of Ontario. This is due to early season temperature
fluctuations and ground/water not being frozen. So with melt
a likelihood, clubs are understandably reluctant to spend
precious resources on grooming that will be wasted. They
would rather wait until everything freezes up to pack a base
that will last all season. Besides, when nothing is frozen,
clubs can't even gt their groomers into many trails due to
impassable swamps, bogs, creeks and washouts. What's more,
taking groomers out prematurely frequently results in costly
repairs that also diverts dollars from grooming. So what
would your choice be... expending scarce cash on an early
snow crapshoot or saving it for prime time?
When snow arrives as early as mid-November, as it did
recently in much of central and southwestern Ontario, clubs
face other challenges, too. Usually, land use permission for
opening trails on private property is not effective until
closer to Christmas. Keeping trails closed on private land
until then is especially important in farm country, where
riding too early may cause crop damage or interfere with
fall farm operations. Unfortunately, almost all mid-November
snow fell on these agricultural areas. These unavailable
trails effectively orphaned many other trails and links, by
making them inaccessible.
Another consideration is that clubs simply often do not have
time to get trails properly prepped, signed and staked
before such an early snow. Also, after such a stormy and wet
summer and fall, clubs have been working overtime to clear
away fallen debris, repair washouts and restore trail
surfaces. In many locations, soft or muddy ground and open
or unsafe wet areas have delayed their work, as has the
early snow. From a safety and risk management perspective,
the clubs would be remiss in their duty of care to permit
holders to open trails that arc not ready.
So there's the story, folks. You may not like it any more
than we do, but that's the consequence of dealing with
Mother Nature while closing trails each spring and opening
them again each winter. It's like owning a cottage... even
if summer arrives early, you can't open it until the hydro
is on, the water hooked up, the storms arc removed, and the
access road is passable.
So please be patient and understanding... you can bet that
OFSC clubs are hard at work and that our volunteers will
have trails open as soon as humanly possible... and as
Mother Nature allows.
Source: Craig Nicholson, OFSC
Communications, OFSC Go Snowmobiling Magazine.
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