Summer 2018 | 19 Ally Martin of Rutland VT is a member of the Tweed Valley Travelers. Ally’s role in the club is “Club News Correspondent” but she also helps the club in many other areas. Ally plans to attend Vermont Tech in the fall with her major area of study in Business Management. Ally’s Essay: The relationship between landowners and snowmobilers is extremely important for snowmobiling in Vermont. Vermont has state parks and national forests, but most of Vermont’s snowmobile trail system is made up of private landowners which creates a vital relationship between snowmobilers and landowners No matter the amount of trails a landowner has, that relationship still matters. If the relationship between the landowner and snowmobilers was lost, the trail could close. If the landowner felt the snowmobilers were being disrespectful, the landowner has the power to close that trail, which a landowner should never have to do. Riders need to treat the land they ride on as if it was their own. Snowmobilers need to respect the landowner to keep the relationship strong because without a strong relationship, Vermont wouldn’t have much of a trail system. The relationship between landowners and the local snowmobile clubs is just as important. A snowmobile club has the responsibility to maintain a Scholarships good relationship with the landowner to ensure that the trails stay open. A landowner needs to feel they can trust the club. If landowners don’t trust a club, then trails will more than likely close. They need to feel that if they were to bring up a concern to the club, the club will do the best to work things out to make both sides happy. I have personal experience with just how important both of these relationships are to snowmobilers. During the season of 2017, the club I am in lost permission to use some land in the valley. The landowner wasn’t happy about the noise and how late the noise was happening. Our club scrambled to find a replacement trail. With some last minute decisions, the club was able to find a temporary trail to open the valley again. The new trail through the valley was going to go down a town road and across some land of willing landowners, but after the season had opened and snowmobilers started to use the trail, the club began receiving a lot of complaints from surrounding landowners. The club took all of the responsibility, and the temporary trail was in constant jeopardy of closing because of the relationship between the club and the previous landowner. The landowner did not bring the issue to the club to see if there was another way to solve the issue, other than to just close the trail down. The club worked hard last summer to gain trust back with the landowner and we worked as a team to reroute the original trail where it would still be on his land, but not cause noise issues. Even though I knew just how important the relationships were for this issue, it has shown me how much importance they have. As a rider and a club member, I hope that every rider and club knows this and keeps it in their mind as they continue to use the land.