Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 8030 | Snowmobile VERMONT Mike Koehler, Director Northeast Kingdom Snow Blasters In 2009, I moved to this state with my wife and son. We wanted a more rural upbringing for him. Vermont is where my wife was born and raised. This meant that growing up in the Kingdom she was entrenched in snowmobiling. In 2010, I bought my first snowmobile. I purchased a 1989 Arctic Cat Panther two-up with a blown out rear suspension. I used it ice fishing with the kids and riding the family fields. Fast forward six years and five sleds later. I might be addicted to the sport. Now I have a love for a lot of things: fishing, hunting, ATVs, etc. The difference with snowmobiling for me is that it is a family sport. It encompasses the community, more than just me. As of now, I am a director for my local snowmobile club and my wife is the treasurer for a club a few towns over. My children attend every snowmobile meeting and generally play in the clubhouse but they are getting the early exposure that will make them the future leaders for our sport. The reason that the above is important to me is due to my love of snowmobiling, but more importantly involving my children in something that is bigger than them and requires hard work. Volunteering for VAST is hard work. There is work involved with signage, clearing trails, creating club events, financial responsibility, equipment maintenance and overall community relations. My goal is to have my kids grow up within VAST and Juggling a family, work, chores and trail work is never easy. Mike seems to do it effortlessly. Why I Volunteer associate the life values that VAST portrays and requires to be successful. All this hard work equates to beautiful trails and amazing memories. The lesson here for them is that those perfectly groomed Kingdom trails do not come without hard work. Life does not come without hard work. That is why I volunteer and that is why I am involving my children to become better volunteers than me someday. Steve Myers, Club Member Sterling Snowriders I was asked to share my thoughts surrounding the reasons I volunteer to work on the VAST snowmobile trails. I live in Chittenden county and joined a local club when I first started sledding, even though the weather and terrain Steve realized early on the importance of volunteering and the friends to be made while doing so. dictated that I needed to trailer east to ride every weekend. I soon realized that I should pay my dues to support a club in a location where I spent more time riding. Since I deer hunted and knew one of the main volunteers in Johnson, I joined the Sterling Snowriders. After attending a couple of club meetings and realizing the amount of work that needed to be done each season, it was hard to not volunteer regardless of the travel time required to get from home to the club’s trails a couple of weekends in the fall. Getting started volunteering was the hard part. There are many new friendships with other snowmobilers to be made and stories to be told. Continuing to volunteer is the easy part. I find that the time I spend with others sharing the work is always worth the time invested. Whether it is getting stuck, cold, wet or sore, the stories to share are what I enjoy most. Unfortunately, there is not enough allotted space left in this article for me to tell any of my stories about the 2013 ice storm, Louie getting stuck and cut or our fearless leader, Ellis. I am now at the point where I feel guilty if other commitments prevent me from joining the rest of the crew on a work weekend. Why do you volunteer? Let us know at by sending your stories and high resolution photo files by e-mail to vtsnowmobiler@outlook.com