Kelsey Trail Sno-Riders

Grooming is underway.

Trail work is well underway. That heavy snowfall left a lot of bent -over trees and lots blocking the trails so the guys have been hard at work clearing them off and packing the trails. Just need a little more snow and some colder weather before grooming can start.

Getting ready for winter - the club has been making repairs to the deck of the bridge over the Goose River. We will have our first meeting on Monday, October 25th at 6:30 at the groomer building. All in attendance must be double vaccinated. Memberships will be available at $5.00 each. Bring your own chair.

Cecil Meadows in a snowmbile he built with his brother Tink. We've come a long way!!

Outdoor firepits have been added to our shelters at Halstead, Mokki, Clearwater and Campbell Lake. Soon to appear at Big Bend, Slippery Corner and Goose River. They were donated to us by Tourism North, a government-funded organization that is promoting snowmobile tourism in the north. We are concerned with our wood supply holding out, so will have to see how it goes.

This case with glasses was found on the trails. It is in the Halstead shelter.

To people wondering how clubs get their funds from Sno-Pass sales: When you purchase your Sno-Pass at an MPI outlet , your money goes to the Manitoba government. They re-imburse the MPI agent $10.00 per Pass and also deduct an amount for GST. The balance is forwarded to Snoman Inc. where it goes into a trust fund. Once per year, usually in November, Snoman sends funding to the 51 clubs in their network. The amount per club is determined by their total trail length - call...ed trail maintenance funding - and by the total number of kilometers that a club grooms. This is the major source of income for most clubs, but it never covers all the bills and payments for equipment. Clubs have fund-raisers such as poker derbies and ticket sales to raise additional funds. If you click on the Snoman website, it gives complete information about Sno-Passes. So if you are riding on a Snoman trail, know that your orange Sno-Pass plate shows you are supporting this user-pay system. See more

Trails continue to be groomed so why would anyone expect Sno-Passes to be refunded? We are not happy with the orders to close our shelters, but we are bound by what the province mandates. Some of our trails cannot yet be groomed because there are wet spots and we do not want to have our groomer break through again. That involved a full day of work by a few of our club members who volunteer their time for this and all other work on the trails. And our costs do not end with the closure of the shelters. We are in the process of obtaining outdoor firepits to help the situation. However, we know this will mean a lot more wood will be burned so we may ask people to step up to the plate and help with firewood delivery.

As required by the Province and Snoman, we have posted our shelters as "CLOSED".

Last Monday our groomer got into trouble on trail # 412 approx. five km south of Slippery Corner. It broke through the trail where it appears water was running under the trail due to beaver activity. The rescue job was successful thanks to some hard work by six of our club members and the use of industrial-strength come-alongs lent to us by Canadian Kraft Paper. The groomer got a good check-over including greasing the chassis and changing the oil in the final drives and it is back on the trails today.

The groomer guys have been out grooming the trails since December 10th. It will be an on-going process as some areas were wet and we had to give them time to freeze up. Riders are expected to maintain social distancing and all other covid rules mandated by the government. Our shelters are to be considered "Closed". Remember that if you are riding on a Snoman trail, that an orange "Sno-Pass" license plate must be displayed on your snowmobile. This is what pays the bills to maintain the trails, so please do your part to support the efforts of this club and all others in Manitoba.

Working on the gravel pit by-pass on trail # 410, just past the groomer building towards the loppit trail.

The heat wave that Mother Nature has been sending us has resulted in a lot f damage to our trails so our President has called Snoman to advise them that we have to consider our trail system "Closed". We will begin removing lake markers and signs this week.

Cecil Meadows in a snowmbile he built with his brother Tink. We've come a long way!!

Outdoor firepits have been added to our shelters at Halstead, Mokki, Clearwater and Campbell Lake. Soon to appear at Big Bend, Slippery Corner and Goose River. They were donated to us by Tourism North, a government-funded organization that is promoting snowmobile tourism in the north. We are concerned with our wood supply holding out, so will have to see how it goes.

This case with glasses was found on the trails. It is in the Halstead shelter.

To people wondering how clubs get their funds from Sno-Pass sales: When you purchase your Sno-Pass at an MPI outlet , your money goes to the Manitoba government. They re-imburse the MPI agent $10.00 per Pass and also deduct an amount for GST. The balance is forwarded to Snoman Inc. where it goes into a trust fund. Once per year, usually in November, Snoman sends funding to the 51 clubs in their network. The amount per club is determined by their total trail length - call...ed trail maintenance funding - and by the total number of kilometers that a club grooms. This is the major source of income for most clubs, but it never covers all the bills and payments for equipment. Clubs have fund-raisers such as poker derbies and ticket sales to raise additional funds. If you click on the Snoman website, it gives complete information about Sno-Passes. So if you are riding on a Snoman trail, know that your orange Sno-Pass plate shows you are supporting this user-pay system. See more

Trails continue to be groomed so why would anyone expect Sno-Passes to be refunded? We are not happy with the orders to close our shelters, but we are bound by what the province mandates. Some of our trails cannot yet be groomed because there are wet spots and we do not want to have our groomer break through again. That involved a full day of work by a few of our club members who volunteer their time for this and all other work on the trails. And our costs do not end with the closure of the shelters. We are in the process of obtaining outdoor firepits to help the situation. However, we know this will mean a lot more wood will be burned so we may ask people to step up to the plate and help with firewood delivery.

As required by the Province and Snoman, we have posted our shelters as "CLOSED".

Last Monday our groomer got into trouble on trail # 412 approx. five km south of Slippery Corner. It broke through the trail where it appears water was running under the trail due to beaver activity. The rescue job was successful thanks to some hard work by six of our club members and the use of industrial-strength come-alongs lent to us by Canadian Kraft Paper. The groomer got a good check-over including greasing the chassis and changing the oil in the final drives and it is back on the trails today.

The groomer guys have been out grooming the trails since December 10th. It will be an on-going process as some areas were wet and we had to give them time to freeze up. Riders are expected to maintain social distancing and all other covid rules mandated by the government. Our shelters are to be considered "Closed". Remember that if you are riding on a Snoman trail, that an orange "Sno-Pass" license plate must be displayed on your snowmobile. This is what pays the bills to maintain the trails, so please do your part to support the efforts of this club and all others in Manitoba.

Working on the gravel pit by-pass on trail # 410, just past the groomer building towards the loppit trail.

Just finished covering over a back rock area on trail # 2. Good work guys.

This notice will be appearing in the Opasquia Times. The trail we are re-locating for safety reasons is trail # 410, just past the groomer building.

Our Goose River shelter got a major facelift yesterday: new shingles, good-lookin' paint job, new chimney and heat guard for the stove. Trails in the bush are still holding up so workers were able to get there by snowmobile. Great job KTSR volunteers.

Big Bend shelter got a facelift yesterday - doors and window frames painted inside and out, gable ends painted and metal bear deflectors installed at the outer corners where they have been trying to chew their way inside.