Maine's finest snowmobile trails!
The JoMary Riders Snowmobile Club maintains over 100 miles of wilderness snowmobile trails with our three commercial-grade diesel powered groomers. Our trail maintenance staff has been recognized by the Maine Snowmobile Association as being "Trail Groomers of the Year."
The Club is located on South Twin Lake, eight miles outside Millinocket, Maine, and at the edge of the KI/JoMary multiple use forest that spans the high country known as Maine's famous 100 Mile Wilderness. The region lies between Mount Katahdin to the north, Moosehead Lake to the west, Sebec Lake to the south and the Penobscot River to the east.
From the parking lot on South Twin Lake one can ride for hundreds of miles through spectacular forests and over mountains without ever passing through populated areas. Nearly all the region's snowmobile trails are on level, wide, gravel roadbeds used by Maine's logging industry. These landowners thankfully allow use of their unplowed roads during the winter months for both our groomed trails and hundreds of miles of "off-trail" riding.
Along the way there are dozens of scenic spots, moose watching opportunities, and off-trail challenges such as riding to the top of Ragged Mountain.
Some of our fantastic groomed trail riding includes:
JoMary Riders Snowmobile Club's trail system links to several other groomed trail systems to provide riders with an endless variety of routes. Our trails link directly to these destinations: Millinocket; Kokadjo; Ragged Lake; Rockwood; Northeast Carry; Pittston Farm; Greenville; Jackman; Brownville; Schoodic Lake; Abol Bridge; Shin Pond; Chesuncook Village; Baxter State Park; Katahdin Ironworks; Gulf Hagas; and Nahmakanta
Join Us
We welcome you to enjoy our trails, and hope you will join the JoMary Riders Snowmobile Club.
Support Snowmobiling and Fight with Us
We love to snowmobile and are willing to work hard to provide the best riding opportunities possible. But that takes major support from our landowners, our Legislature, and our business community.
Our Club must be heard. The Maine Snowmobile Association (MSA) must be heard. And you must be heard. That's where you come in. Every snowmobiler must make an ongoing effort to be heard - Not just by supporting a club or the MSA. The most effective way to protect your interests is for you to show up at Legislative hearings and industry meetings, writing to your Legislators, and writing to your newspapers.
Can our industry count on your support?
Thanks! See you on the trail.
Our Latest News and Reports
The JoMary Riders Snowmobile Club’s website has been updated with a new design and content management system. The club has not been able to offer much in the way of current information since 2008 and much has transpired since then.
We are very excited to be able to make easy updates on news and trail conditions. Thanks to club President Rick LeVasseur and club members John Rust and Terry Stanwick for working on this.
After completing our Municipal Grant Request for Reimbursement and looked at our financials, I realized that these guys are busy and my emails are long, but I am amazed that nobody has responded. MSA is not pleased at all. It’s interesting to note that the MSA voted to increase their dues by 25% (from $12 to $15) but didn’t feel the timing was “appropriate” for a registration fee increase. Duh.
More Info on Municipal Trail Funding
The Bureau of Parks & Lands’ Snowmobile Program requires a grant application from clubs in order for them to receive payment for any work or grooming that they have performed on their Municipal trail system.
There are 115 of these Municipal Grants administered across the State. The Request for Reimbursement is an actual one that I have recently submitted to the Town Of East Millinocket (even though the Jo Mary Riders is located in Indian Purchase 4, part of the unorganized territories). When I submitted the form to the Town there were 15 additional pages of supporting documentation. Here’s a brief explanation of the figures depicted on the form;
Administrative total of $291 = 32 hours of Grant paper work @$8/hr + a $35 Corporate Filing fee charge.
Under GROOMING TRAILS you see a number next to equipment hours: 636 and then $43,884.00
We have three big Bombardier snow cats that we bought used from various ski areas in North America, two are 2001 models and one is a 2006. (picture attached). Continue reading
On Monday morning I met with Rep. Paul Davis, chair of the IF & W committee, to discuss what I feel is the ongoing “lack of funding” situation with the Snowmobile Program. I called him after looking at my own clubs “funding Vs. spending” for this season. This year, the Jo Mary Riders received a municipal grant for $37,000 and a club grant for $3,750 or $40,750 in total. In grooming hours alone we are owed over $47,000 ($69/hour x 688 hours). In pre-season trail work/maintenance we spent over $12,000 in REAL money, this does not include any labor. Our bill for off-road diesel is over $15,000 for the season. In July mortgage payments on two groomers are due totaling $25,000. Ridership on our trails is ever increasing yet membership in our club has fallen two years in a row. How long can we keep this up?
So, I called Paul and we met in Milo and talked for a couple of hours. Continue reading
Mother nature has been kind to us these past few days. We picked up close to 2 feet of new snow in the past 3 storms and the last 15 + inches have been wet and heavy. We are grooming everthing and on a regular basis. With 30 + inches of snow on the ground the riding is awesome and you can count on the Katahdin Region, with its 8 big cats, to keep it that way! Plenty of rooms and rentals still available in the Region through February. Come on up and enjoy the best riding in Maine. Details on the trail report at www.neoc.com.
On Thursday we groomed: #111 connector to the Jo Mary Road – Good to Very Good; B Pond trail – Very Good to Excellent; Gauntlet Falls Club trail – Excellent; South Twin to Millinocket Suspension Bridge – good. Friday we groomed the: Katahdin Loop Trail (now the 109 connector) – Very good to Excellent; Black Pond trail – Excellent. The Pemadumcook Parkway club trail is rideable but has extensive windblown bare areas. The #111 connector west of the Jo Mary Road to Wildwoods is rideable but as yet ungroomed.
Katahdin-Millinocket area – Januaryn13, 2011: We received the lighter side of the 6 to 10 inches predicted for our area. This is enough for us to get a groomer headed from Twin Pines out the Grant Brook road to ITS85/86 west to Penobscot Pond. This will allow us to connect to trails being groomed by Kakadjo and the Ragged Riders.
On Thursday we groomed: #111 connector to the Jo Mary Road – Good to Very Good; B Pond trail – Very Good to Excellent; Gauntlet Falls Club trail – Excellent; South Twin to Millinocket Suspension Bridge – good. Friday we groomed the: Katahdin Loop Trail (now the 109 connector) – Very good to Excellent; Black Pond trail – Excellent. The Pemadumcook Parkway club trail is rideable but has extensive windblown bare areas. The #111 connector west of the Jo Mary Road to Wildwoods is rideable but as yet ungroomed.
Katahdin-Millinocket area – 1/13/11: We received the lighter side of the 6 to 10 inches predicted for our area. This is enough for us to get a groomer headed from Twin Pines out the Grant Brook road to ITS85/86 west to Penobscot Pond. This will allow us to connect to trails being groomed by Kakadjo and the Ragged Riders.
While we are still riding and grooming and there are still parts of our system with tons of snow, the hot sun of the weekend really took a toll on the trail sections that we have been just hanging on to for the past couple of weeks. Consider the trails to the hotels and the South Twin Bridge (Wiley Crossing) to be trails to be avoided unless we get 6 or 8 inches of snow. We will no longer be grooming them without additional snow. Also while the Pole line will get you to Millinocket Lake from town, we groomed it for the last time last Saturday, with out more snow. It is passable but will be a slow ride with lots of bobbing and weaving around dirt, rocks and other assorted challenges!
As for the rest of the system, we are moving into spring riding conditions. The higher elevations backcountry riding is awesome with deep snow in most places above 1200 to 1500 feet of elevations. As for groomed trails we are still grooming ITS86 from Twin Pines west and the Timber Cruisers East. The first few miles from each starting point are thin on snow but it gets better and better as you gain elevation and distance. We are also grooming the Logan Pond trail and the Grant Brook Road but coverage is getting thin on both trails where they were plowed early in the winter.
Both the Twin Pines Snowmobile Club and the Jo Mary Riders Club will be grooming tonight and again before the weekend if the weather and conditions warrant. I highly recommend a ride from our area out to Kakadjo and or Chesuncook village and the Chesuncook Lake House as the snow conditions and grooming in this direction continue to support great riding. Additionally the riding north to Bowlin and the Patten Shin Pond area is good and there is always snow on the ungroomed Baxter Park Road to Mattagamon! Expect the conditions on the trails we are grooming to be good to excellent with a few sections closer to town that will require a little careful riding and navigation to pass. Join us this week or weekend, gas, food (thursday through Sunday) and lodging are still available at Twin Pine Camps. And Remember what those that ride the Katahdin Region regularly know — Its not how much snow you have, but what you do with it that counts! Ride here and benefit from the pride we take in making and keeping our trail system one of the very best in the state!
Rode 139 miles from South Twin Lake to Chesuncook Village and back. Left at 10 am, so 7 hours and 10 minutes enroute, with a 1 1/2 hour break for lunch at the village. The ONLY bare spots we found were in the first 4 miles (have just opened up since Saturday) and you can get around every one of them (maybe eight total spots).
The word MOGUL does not exist in the Jo Mary Riders territory. They just don’t allow them to develop. That being said, there are hardly any other bumps to speak of. We went out the Katahdin Loop Trail to Black Pond trail, Ragged lake trail to Spencer Mtn to newly opened/groomed Maxfield Brook road to Loop road to Little Lobster to Poulin road to Salmon Pond road to the village. Down Chesuncook Lake to the end of Caribou Lake, new shortcut trail (runs west of 10-40 pond) back to Black Pond trail. West to Farrar Mtn (ragged lake) trail south to 86 to B Pond and back to here.
Even Kokadjo’s B pond trail section was EXCELLENT. So all in all, JoMary trails are still very nice.
Cold weather returns to the Katahdin Region with temps in the mid twenties Tuesday night and dipping down into the teens by Thursday and through the weekend. This will allow us to really work the new snow that we have received over the past week.
The areas groomed by the three Katahdin area clubs; the East Branch Snow Rovers, Jo Mary Riders and Twin Pine Snowmobile Club received from a few inches to well over two feet of new snow.
This means that while most of the trails in the area are very well covered, some are not and it is important that you plan your travel accordingly. As a general rule, it is the trails within the immediate boundaries’ of town that are in poor shape. All of these trail sections can be avoided by starting your ride in the right place, generally within just a few miles of the in-town hotels. If you want to avoid riding on rough trail and are staying in a hotel, it is worth trailering a few miles.
ITS 86 has places with over 2 feet of snow packed on the trail near Whetstone and for much of the trip from Nahmakanta Lake to Kakadjo. If you rode this section this weekend, we are sorry about the lack of grooming and trees in the trail from the heavy wet snow. We tried to groom it but lost a groomer of the side of the trail in deep snow and then spun a track trying to get it back on the trail. We tried to pull it out with a BR 160 that was in the area but had to wait a day until we could get another BR400 out to pull it out. Monday, after the “rescue” we ran both machines to Penobscot Pond and “broke open” the trail. We are back in the area today cutting out what’s left of the blow downs and storm damaged trees. We will be back on it with groomers, Wednesday, and expect it to be in excellent shape by Friday.
The Katahdin Area Trails received from a low of a few inches right in town to a high of 18 inches to 2 feet in the higher elevations like the B Pond area. There is some minor impact with ice and snow on trees in the Gun Barrel stretch between Whitehouse Landing and Three Corners. But a little wind will quickly take care of this and the trails are fine for riding and grooming. We are also not grooming tonight as the snow is still too wet and temps are not forecast to drop below 30 all night. The base was flat and the riding today was great but if we get a lot of use this weekend things will get bumpy. As of today it looks like things will be cool enough to groom Sunday night and more snow may well be on the way for Monday. Cold temps return Tuesday and most of our trail system should be in excellent condition and easy to keep that way through next weekend and beyond. Still forecasting 3-5 more inches tonight and 1- 3 for tomorrow night and flurries for the rest of the weekend.
