Snow Sports Officers: ‘Knucklehead’ skiers driving off designated roads ruin things for others

This is a problem every year during the snowmobile season in Upstate New York. This year is nothing different and the mild winter seems to have made things worse.

This is the issue of snowmobiles driving on designated roads on land where they should not be, and ticking off the landowners who have given permission for a route on their property.

The result? The landowner decides to close his section of the trail and ban snowmobiles on his or her land. When the route sections are closed, the members of the private snowmobile club, who volunteer their time to clean and maintain the roads, and to indicate the routes, must quickly come up with an alternative route – if they can

Sometimes they can not.

The end result can be a permanent closure of the route for the season, or forever, which can eliminate a loop on a main artery on a club’s route system. The bottom line: many law-abiding, conscientious sliders suffer from some “knucklehead” or “idiot” actions, according to the snowmobile club officials interviewed.

A classic example of this problem occurred earlier this season with the Hamburg Snowmobile Club route system in Erie County.

Jason Larson, the club’s president, posted several messages on the club’s Facebook page about snowmobiles riding off the trails. The recent says: “Routes are closed. Stay home before we lose more landowners. ”

At the end of December, the Hamburg club opened its roads for a few days after snow of 5 to 10 centimeters. The club’s route system and others in the area were immediately flooded with riders – a number who left the route system or traveled there over other nearby countries where they did not have permission to ride.

Larson said unknown sledges left the rail system on one yard, stopped and climbed into the deer of the property. In another case, a couple stopped, lit a fixed owner’s gas grill, warmed themselves up and left, leaving beer cans on the ground.

He said the result was the closure of two sections of about ten kilometers – sections that allowed access to the club’s new route cutter and care shed. Larson said his club has since diverted one part of the closed route and is still trying to figure out what the other closed part of the route should do.

Larson added: ‘It’s not hard enough to get roads right. Now we have to turn a corner because of idiots. We are a volunteer organization. We are not paid. We do it on our own time. To be honest, it’s quite discouraging. ”

Dave Waples, president of the Erie County Federation of Snowmobile Clubs, said it is not a problem that is unique to Erie County, but that it occurs throughout the state. He said he and other local officials in Erie Province for snowmobiling had received many calls from upset landowners about ‘bad behavior’ of sledding. Ten snowmobile clubs are members of the provincial federation.

“Some of the complaints resulted in rail closures, others not,” he said. ‘It put the clubs in the situation that they had to pull out and correct. You have knuckleheads out there who feel they can ride wherever they want. ‘

Jim Rolf, route coordinator for the New York State Snowmobile Association Trespassing, said snowmobiles that leave marked trails drive above and beyond, damaging themselves to unknown dangers such as fallen trees, rocks or frozen waterways that may not be safe to cross. to stab.

Eventually trailers on the road run the risk of damaging crops. “It’s a big problem,” he said.

“In many cases, the marked route is the only place you have to drive,” he said. ‘If you leave the track and do not know who it is, or do not have permission from the owner

Waples said the reality is that it is difficult to catch these offending snowmobiles because they ride at all times of the day and an officer of law enforcement must be there to catch them. Route camera photos usually do not hold up as evidence.

Larson, he posted several messages to warn the snowmobiles to stay on the club’s trails. According to him, one has been shared about 20,000 times. “I even got a call from a man in Alaska who said they had the same problem out there,” he said.

Larson compares the actions of these irresponsible snowmobiles to someone driving a car in a public street and decides to drive in someone’s backyard and ‘do donuts’.

“It shows a total lack of respect for the owner,” he said.

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