The first forecast for snow hit the airwaves this morning, 2” for this area and more for higher elevations. I hope that the weathermen are wrong! Snow at this early date just hampers our efforts to get things accomplished on the trails. As I’m sure most of you know by now we face considerable challenges in the trails department for this coming season. The trail to B Pond (and our club trail via the Yoke Ponds) has always been either on, or adjacent to, the Jo Mary road. The landowner, Prentiss & Carlisle, has told us “no more”.
So we talked with their forester, mapped out a bypass trail and went to work.A fellerbuncher cut the new trail where needed, a grapple skidder carried all of the wood to three different “yards”, an excavator has removed all of the rocks and stumps and installed 9 new culverts and we have built a new bridge at Sanborn Brook….all in 10 days. And at a cost of close to $10,000 when fully completed.
A huge price to pay but worth it in the long run.
Work currently continues on the rebuild of both the Pratt Brook and Cooper Brook bridges that were damaged by high water last spring. FEMA monies were secured to help defray the cost of the repairs and I feel confident that we can accomplish the repairs within those dollar values. Whether we will actually need those bridges this winter is still a big question. As of this writing it appears that we will not have access to the Cooper Mtn. section of our trail. If this holds true the only way that we will get to ITS 86 is via the Yoke Ponds and we will have no need (or funding) to groom a dead end trail. Maybe that will change by the time the real snows come.
A “new” 2003 Mogul Master 11 blade drag was purchased last week. Prinoth took our old drag in on trade (gave us $4000 for a drag that we paid $2500 for six years ago!) By the time we receive monies from the Capital Equipment Grant Program, the new drag will only cost us about $2000. A good deal no matter how you cut it.
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Thanks, Think Snow and Ride Safe!
Rick LeVasseur
President
jomaryriders@midmaine.com