b'Whos In The Groomer?WHOS IN THE GROOMER?C hesteRs nowMobileC lubBy Patty CompanikThe Chester Snowmobile Club of Windsor county has fifty-nine miles of trail and twelve miles of secondary trail. They have two Tucker machines: 1999 Tucker 2000 rubber track and a 2018 Tucker 2000 Steel cleated track. They also have in their fleet; two Mogul Master drags, one AMFI drag and a compactor Bar.The Chester Club has five groomers who care for these trails which also cross into Windham county. The terrain of their trails is mostly hilly with some areas being quite steep and they cross over twenty-one bridges.Under good snow conditions the club has an established grooming route: Saturday night the 2018 goes towards Cavendish and does all Corridor 11 both ways. The 1999 rubber track does Corridors 121 ,35 and 11A. Monday everything is repeated and during the week the higher traffic trails are repeated as needed. times! For Mr. Jewett, he has Lots ofthe club building bridges and trail Dick Jewett began riding in the 1970s,fun grooming! brush clearing. He then moved on to and really got involved in the mid- Keith Jungermann has been involvedriding shotgun with Dick Jewett and 1980s. Dick is the clubs trailmaster andin snowmobiling since 1968. He had ahelping along the way with any tree Windsor countys vice president. Hegroomer friend ask him if he wantedor brush issues. I learned what to do also held the county director positionto join the grooming team about aand what not to do from Dick. He is a for many years and has been involvedyear ago. Keith enjoys learning how togreat teacher. Dave, Keith, and I focus in multiple VAST committees. By 1985,operate the groomer and drag properlyon the Windham area trails (we are he started grooming with his own sled.in order to produce the best possibleresidents of that area) and we groom He went on to groom with a club sledtrail surface as well as the opportunityabout twenty-five to thirty miles of for several years, to a Bombie and thengrooming allows regarding gettingtrail. Russ shared, The best part of to a BR 100. Dick has groomed withto know the trails in intricate detail.grooming is getting out into the back five different tuckers over the pastKeith shared, riders constantly tellcountry and seeing the beauty of the thirty-five years. He is also the clubsus groomers about how much theyVermont woods and the wildlife trails lead coordinator for making trailsappreciate the great riding experience.left in the snow. We see moose and and building bridges, he is a man ofWe remind them it takes all year todeer tracks as well as fox, turkey and many talents. So, what does Dick enjoymaintain great trails. Enjoy the ride,human tracks from rabbit hunters and about grooming; I enjoy making astay on the trail, thank the landownerstheir dogs. The most surprising tracks smooth trail for the VAST membersand support your club! are the ones we see when we do a and these days I groom in tucker thatreturn run on a dead-end trail. Having is warm (The heater works well).Russ Cumming began snowmobilingjust groomed a trail (like down to the One of the fond memories he has isin 1977 when he purchased a vacationCC Camp in Grafton) we return up the the year we had a lot of snow and thenhome in Rawsonville. Years later hetrail we just groomed twenty to thirty got another big storm on top of that.moved to Windham and began ridingminutes ago, and we see a clear set of It was very hard to tell where the trailwith his friend George Badgley on thenew tracks from a moose, deer or fox was when he was grooming. He gotChester trails. After retiring to Vermontrunning right down the center of the stuck thirteen times that run, and theyin 2017, he began his grooming career.freshly groom trail. It brings a smile shoveled the machine out all thirteenIt started with volunteering withto our faces. They must have been Winter 2022 | 13'