Free riding in Castlegar, come on over, BYOB.

Team Pigeon

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Gotta bring it here to the forums fellas, I got a beef with some Washington plate riders not paying up the $10 trail fees up Ladybird the past few weeks. Well, not only Washington, but also Quebec, Saskatchewan, Idaho, Alberta and some certain well known community locals. Them bright yellow collection boxes are the first thing you see getting up there to park.

I received disgruntled emails from members this week. Parking lot full, 15-20 people from Washington. No Washington dollars. One of my members mentioned the 'trail fee' subject to some of these people last weekend, heads all turned to the ground. Checked the box yesterday, netted a two week total of $40, CDN. Lame eh, 20 people @ $10 a head, you can add. GooseCreek had a bit more, $130 and a group from Oregon had their names on $50. I truly do appreciate the monies from in the boxes, but it's not relative to the trucks I see up there on a regular basis, truly disheartening. Maybe a bit of education is needed.

We burn 250L in diesel every two weeks which adds up to about 2250L a season @ 1.30L- average. 2 cases grease last week- should be good for a year. Snowcat engine almost cratered at the start of the season with mechanical issues due to the cold. Anyone notice the parking lot doubled in size over the summer? A D8 bulldozed it last summer, local logging company handled that for us. Double the size now means double the plowing duties that's been contracted most of the season. But it's sure nice turning your 4place enclosed around ain't it? Tandem axle deck truck is used to haul a 12000lb snowcat between the two zones: we are thankful the owner donates his time and money for these services.

Volunteer time. Ohhh ya, what's that worth? The grooming director resigned just after christmas so I added them duties to my list of tasks. Grant applications. The fall time fundraiser. We were also successful in helping a neighboring club's land issues in order to keep sledder access OPEN from commercial operations. We've been in operation for over 20 years and just renewed a 20 year term agreement with the government last month. Grouser repairs were made last month, took three hours with a welder and his rig. Firewood up at the Shaw a couple weeks ago, Ladybird should follow later this spring, that's a whole day that I can't ride- per cabin. I average a consistent 10hrs/week of volunteering time, all year long. The bookkeeper requires about 50hrs handling monies and mail. There's also a secretary and a vice prez.

What else? A second snowcat is being purchased for about 35K. Been saving up for that one for a few years. We had a lot of help from the locals and community with this project. As of late, I'm trying to fund-raise local tax money for a trail brusher to keep the roads open for all users of the area. Sold the skidsteer to pay for a plow/fueling truck for next season, finding something that ain't gonna fall apart has been an ignorant task. It really be nice to get 10cents on all them American beer cans we haul down but they don't take them at the depot. Maybe start buying you beer locally, Coors is 5% up here eh!


To close, if you think I'm painting everyone with the same brush, re-read my first sentence. The cheapest part of your day sledding is that $10. There's good people out there, I'll probably never know who you are. The message is aimed on those that don't g.a.f. rip and hammer up the trail for free. The reality of what it takes to run a non-profit volunteer club has gotta come to light and deserves some respect. Not just this club, but everywhere there's a groomer going at it in the middle of the night.

'Character' is defined when no-one's watching.

With respect,

Stephane Pigeon
President
Castlegar Snowmobile Association
 

LUCKY 7

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real simple to me... you ride the trails that a club takes care of you should man up and pay!!
 

ferniesnow

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Reality strikes again! Bastages..........:noidea:

Stephane, have you considered paying a "trail pass vendor" for your busy days? Start with even one of the busy days! Someone with some communications skills and humor. If you don't collect more than the wages, return to the boxes. Worth a try?

The FSA started with volunteers and then paid the girls and it is making money. The next step in Fernie is to get the trail pass vendors out on busier days during the week. We are finding lots are hitting the trail at the beginning of the week or mid-week. But we doo have a lot of out-of -province members that buy the membership to support the club and that way they forego the hassle of the daily trail pass.

We will be presented with a "provincial trail pass" in the future that will be mandatory for all residents. I haven't heard what the effects will be for the out-of-province dudes will be.
 

freeflorider

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Reality strikes again!

We will be presented with a "provincial trail pass" in the future that will be mandatory for all residents. I haven't heard what the effects will be for the out-of-province dudes will be.

Please tell me more about this provincial trail pass? Something new...
 

ferniesnow

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Please tell me more about this provincial trail pass? Something new...

Going to follow along with the new OHV registration. It seems when the gov't gets involved in anything it just costs the low man on the totem pole more money! There are a lot of scenarios to work out with regards to collecting and enforcement. Other provinces like what is set up in their bailiwicks but I'm not convinced it will work that easy here.

It took mega years to get some teeth into snowmobile registration and if that can be enforced (I have my doubts about that also), there may be an outside chance that the "provincial trail pass" can be implemented. It only took 10-15 years to re-write the legislation for OHV registration, so who really knows......:noidea:
 

Modman

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What's the US dollar right now? That $10 isn't even $10 once ya convert it. Cheap riding..... Times haven't changed from almost 15 yrs ago, we used to pick up all the american beer cans along the rest stop up at bulldog crk as well. They didn't pay for a trail pass back then either. Sad.

If you're grooming, it should be $15 a head and have someone there collecting if possible. If they're too cheap to pay for it, go ride a bumpy trail elsewhere.
 

moyiesledhead

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Cranbrook expanded our parking lot last summer too Steph, to the tune of $6500. Starting to think it may have been a mistake. Increased traffic and way too many big units showing up now, costing a lot more to groom and keep the parking clear. No real issues so far with getting visitors to pay, but we usually have someone up there collecting on the weekends. We'll have to see where that goes. Same old problem we've always had with cheap azz locals that don't want to pay though.

Dodging a $10 trail pass fee is lower than low. It's a bargain for crap sake! Not many areas left that are that cheap. Ours is $20. Get off your frickin' wallets people!

The Moyie club has been trying to get permission to develop a proper parking area, find a way to fund a grooming program, and build an emergency cabin on the mountain. After reading this, I think we may just scrap those ideas all together and keep our "mediocre" riding all to ourselves. :D
 

moyiesledhead

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We will be presented with a "provincial trail pass" in the future that will be mandatory for all residents. I haven't heard what the effects will be for the out-of-province dudes will be.

If the government is collecting it I have my doubts the clubs will ever see a single penny from it.
 

freeflorider

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Well put ferniesnow and moyie, I agree we need to support local clubs, at one point I never agreed with paying for trail fees but now if we don't support them and all the hard work that goes into the grooming or the cabins we use it will all die and all that shows the government and the green wieners is we don't care if we get to use the area for motor sport recreation.
In the end it will be turned into another walking trail.
regardless where your from if you enjoyed the area you just rode chuck a few bones into the box so the next time you come it won't have a big sign that says welcome to the Norns walking trail...please park here...RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE GATE!

oh and by the way I buy two memberships a year just incase one of my cheep non paying friends comes it covers them off...but they always pay...just saying.
 

freeflorider

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I forgot to mention, a big thanks to Stephane for all the grooming and the work on the cabins. Really enjoy them winter and summer.
cheers
woodchuck contracting ltd.
 

Team Pigeon

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-it's not just me out there in the cat, had two more teams making it happen along with a few stragglers. Grooming director/coordinator position is still up for nomination.
-the cabin renos on years recent were steam headed by a group of awesome local members. Another group repainted the shaw this summer, updating its style. There's a lot of people helping out which help keep the momentum going.

-I do not believe in restricting public land to solve these types of issues. We're entitled to be there but we have an agreement that allows us to charge for services rendered. With times how they are lately, more people have less time than they did 10 years ago. 6+1, 10+4, 5+2 the schedule list goes on and on and people have commitments. This is why we, as I'm sure with many other clubs out there are dependant on people's honesty.

-who's offering this provincial trail pass? The bc fed or abcsnow? Or front counter/ parks and rec. never heard of it.
 
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snopro

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-it's not just me out there in the cat, had two more teams making it happen along with a few stragglers. Grooming director/coordinator position is still up for nomination.

-I do not believe in restricting public land to solve these types of issues. We're entitled to be there but we have an agreement that allows us to charge for services rendered. With times how they are lately, more people have less time than they did 10 years ago. 6+1, 10+4, 5+2 the schedule list goes on and on and people have commitments. This is why we, as I'm sure with many other clubs out there are dependant on people's honesty.
Unfortunately we as a group are our own worst enemies. For every honest dude that unloads a sled there is another one looking at a way to beat the system. Good luck and all the best keeping your club afloat!
 

d mills

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It's very sad that people can't cough up 10 loonies to go sledding. When the trail fee is 20 I usually give 30 or 40 just cause I don't live locally and don't provide any volunteer support.
 

ferniesnow

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.............-who's offering this provincial trail pass? The bc fed or abcsnow? Or front counter/ parks and rec. never heard of it.

This is in the thinking stage to go along with the enhanced registration legislation. The big question(s) will be enforcement and "revenue sharing". We all know how poorly the present registration format is enforced and if the government can't improve on that by a large margin, then nothing will really change.

The old adage, "the more things change, the more they stay the same" may apply to this scenario.
 

MenzToys

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A little more to add to Stephs post. Memberships are available at the Community Complex as well as our local snowmobile dealers they are $60 before Jan 1 and $75 after that and if that doesn't work you could always email the club and make arrangements for payment. If you are reading this you have access to the internet, right, not that difficult to do. As for having people collecting at the trial head we try do this on the weekends from 9am to 1pm unfortunately quite a few locals know this and come up after we leave. I have stayed after 1pm and guys that show up say I thought you would be gone by now, really shows the "character" of some people. We must remember this collecting is all done by volunteers because we don't have the finances to pay collectors and realistically why do I want to waste my weekend mornings policing this. We were hoping that with the collection boxes we wouldn't have to be there, kind of an honor system and let's face it most of us would rather be riding than being parking lot "Nazis" as we have been called. We are well aware that many people ride during the week here local and out of towners so we would hope there would be more than $40 in the box after 2 weeks. This has been an on going problem here and maybe a few fines[read the yellow sign] would wake people up. Another problem we are having is Illegal guiding services and commercial activity in the clubs managed area. Last week the club approached the Ministry of Forests on this subject and it is going to be dealt with. In the last couple weeks this "guide" had a group from Quebec here not one penny in the boxes[we know the ones being guided paid him] just he forgot to pay their trail passes I guess. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with guiding and filming in a managed area, it just needs to be done with the proper qualifications and permits which includes liability insurance. Enough for now thx wayne
 
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