Summer 2017 | 37 Club News seeking new members to become involved in the club’s operation and to fill needed positions. Come and join us. The most rewarding part of snowmobiling is the friendship developed with fellow snowmobilers who also work to keep our sport alive and well. See you all at the VAST meeting. Gloria Rodrigue, Secretary orleanssnowstormers.com Like us on Facebook Chittenden Dammers The Fourth of July has come and gone and summer is in full swing. Many club members take to other passions after the snow melts. But, if you are reading this, I know you’re dreaming of smooth trails and deep fluffy snow with your sled slicing through it and the melodic hum of a well-tuned engine. The club had nine weeks of grooming and an on and off season with a super ending with club Vice President J Rod Sherman and board member, Bobby Evegan, riding right up to the last day. The Dammers ended up with 320 members, whom we thank very much for their continued support. With your support, we continue to make Chittenden one of the premier snowmobiling areas in Vermont. It was nice to recently chat with Rutland County Coordinator Tim Park at his compound on Lake Bomoseen. Tim brings a depth of snowmobiling experience, lots of energy and great ideas to the Rutland county snowmobiling community. The Chittenden Dammers wish him well and thank him for taking this important position. During the off-season, there is still quite a bit of trail clearing continuing as well, getting club non-profit tax forms filed and other ongoing administrative tasks. Thanks to a cohesive group of ladies and RUTLAND COUNTY gentlemen, the club is doing well. However, we always welcome new active members who would like to get involved. Many different levels are available from trail clearing to membership assistants and other club chores. Consider getting involved. It’s a great group to work with and a lot of fun. I have one piece of interesting news to report. There was a pending land purchase of the former Johnson Lumber property that was purchased by some folks from Quebec who set up a large sugaring operation and logged it out. They ended up folding the operation and headed north. The US Forest Service has a plan to purchase the property. The club feels this is good news for snowmobilers and other outdoor recreation enthusiasts. The hope is to run the trail off of Wildcat Road with the Catamount ski trail running parallel to it. Getting off the road not only increases the safety factor, but really increases possible usage of the Shrewsbury connector as the road gets plowed and unrideable when the temps go up. The US Forest Service has been a good friend to us, and we hope to work with them on this project. We’ll see how it plays out in the next few months. Don’t forget to keep in touch with our website or our Facebook page. Our next meeting is Sept. 5 at 7 p.m. at the Mountain Top Inn. Please join us. Charlie Robbins, Treasurer chittendendammers.org Like us on Facebook Poultney Valley Snow Devils We did a yard sale at the Poultney town wide yard sale on June 3. Thanks to all who donated sale items and all that worked. We also cooked and sold food at East Poultney Days on the green on Aug. 12. We are evaluating needed trail work and debrushing. We will be doing a major track replacement and complete service on our Tucker 1000 this year. We will be ready for the big snow in 2017/18! Ernie Dematties, Club News Correspondent poultneysnodevils.wordpress.com Like us on Facebook Shrewsbury Sno-Birds Well, summer is moving right along. It is July already! It has been a really wet spring and early summer, so we have not had any work days at this time. Just this last weekend, we received a lot of rain. I know the water was over the road at the Gorham Bridge in Pittsford and other areas also. We will get out soon and check for water damage on our trail system. We hope that they held up well, as we do erosion control every year with the help of Dave Fucci and Gary Arthur. They put in countless hours keeping our trails in great shape. I think we will finally get the bridge replaced on the border of the Gagnon and Rutland City Watershed properties this year. It has been in the works for several years. I am going to talk to Ken Gagnon tomorrow to try and get an update on the progress and the date that he will have the lumber sawed for the bridge. Other than that project, we only have the normal debrushing and water bar cleaning that we always plan for this time of year. We have received some filters for the Tucker and we will be doing all the normal maintenance on it, making sure that it will hopefully go the season with no break downs. Last year, we helped the club to the south as they had a rear spring issue that stopped them. We groomed some of their trails the last two weeks. That is the way it should be, with clubs helping other clubs. We want to thank Scott Ryan for his many years of service as club secretary. He did not want to run for another term. He did a great job