18 | Snowmobile VERMONT the area, you owe it to yourself to visit soon. You will see why people travel for hours just to unload and ride the territory near Island Pond. For 19 years, Mark has been grooming and maintaining the trails in the BSC trail system. He says, “I will be retiring from my day job soon and when I hit twenty years of grooming, I will see if I want to continue at the current pace or ease off my schedule and become a spare. If someone cannot make their run, then it’s nice to know we have backup and that keeps smiles on the faces of the VAST members that travel through our trail system.” When did you start grooming? I started riding shotgun with Gordy Eastman during the winter of 1993/94 and began grooming for the Brighton Snowmobile Club in December of 1999. What is your favorite part about grooming and why do you groom VAST trails? I love the machines and heavy equipment in general. I take pride in seeing how nice I can make each trail turn out. It is very peaceful out in the woods and up in the mountains late at night with the stars shining or in the middle of a snowstorm with howling winds and near zero visibility pushing snow drifts. Do you also ride the trails on a sled? Yes, I have been riding snowmobiles since 1965 and continue today with family and friends. How many miles of trails do you groom each season? We groom somewhere over 1,000 miles depending on the season’s weather conditions. How many groomers do you have? The Brighton Snowmobile Club has three PistenBully Snowcats: PB 200, PB 300 Edge and PB 400 Trail. Two have Mogul Master 10-foot by 18-foot drags and the other a Maxi Drag of the same size. They are housed at our groomer barn on Henshaw Road in Island Pond. What is your full-time job? I am a communications consultant and am getting ready to retire this year. Do you ever take riders in the groomer? Yes, quite often. What clubs are you with? I am the trails coordinator for the Newark E-Z Riders and also belong to the Brighton Snowmobile Club. How many miles of trails are there in the BSC trail system? There are 130 fantastic miles in our trail system. Do you prefer grooming at night or during the day? The BSC grooms only at night, with the exception of when we are packing at the beginning of the season. Night grooming is much safer and the trails set up better when there is low traffic. Having said that, I enjoy the daytime as well. I just don’t get a chance to groom during the day very often. What was the last critter you saw while out grooming? We see moose, deer and rabbits. I am not sure what the last one was. Occasionally, we see an animal or two coming out of the Essex House or KT Ray’s! What would you say is the club’s biggest accomplishment in grooming? I think consistency would best describe our club’s biggest accomplishment. We stick to our schedule when we have good grooming conditions and we take it very seriously. What are biggest challenges you face and what advice would you offer to help? The biggest challenges we have are the riders themselves. Shotgun starts, heavy on/off throttle and powering into corners causes unnecessary trail damage and degrades the riding experience of others. Also, riding late at night when clubs are performing grooming operations is a big problem. Just a couple of hotrodders can destroy 6–8 hours of a groomer’s work in just a few minutes. Tell me a recent funny story about a time in the groomer? A couple of years ago, I set my lunch and flashlight up on the tracks while we were warming up the groomer and getting ready to go. Just as I was pulling away, I remembered what I had done. So I stopped quickly and, sure enough, in the driveway were my flattened lunch and the flashlight, which still worked. My lunch was still good a few hours later even though it was mangled. Anything else you’d like to share? Grooming takes dedication and is a big commitment. It’s not at all just riding around on an air-ride seat when you feel like it in a nice heated cab in your slippers and listening to your favorite tunes on the radio. It’s a lot of work, especially after you have been out 8 to 9 hours with constant focus and get back to the barn when it is 10 below zero at 2 a.m. where you need to refuel and clean the snow off both the Sno-Cat and the drag and then drive home. For the right person with the right mindset, grooming is very rewarding and is a lot of fun. You have to be willing to put in the time and effort. Have you or your club received any VAST awards specific to grooming or your trail conditions, other awards? Yes, the Brighton Snowmobile Club has received several grooming and signing awards over the years. Today, almost every club deserves an award every year because Vermont’s overall grooming and signing programs are that good. Do you have a relief groomer, shared responsibilities or others in training? We have spare operators who fill in when a regular operator is unable to make their run. Every year we train a couple of new operators. How did you first get started in the groomer? Why did you want to learn? Who trained you? What was the first groomer you operated? I started riding along with Gordy Eastman in December of 1993 in a 1977 gas-powered, standard-transmission Tucker Sno-Cat with no blade and a drag Gordy fabricated himself patterned after a drag Cook’s Equipment was selling at the time. I had been pulling homemade drags behind my snowmobiles for several years, loved equipment and always wanted to get into grooming in a bigger way. Who’s In The Groomer?