Just curious on what the average snowmobiler thinks of the current system that is in place. Any comments/experiences are welcome.

Every system has its problems, overall the one that we have has worked well, the early years were a bit of a learning curve. The last season is not a good year to pick on, the 04/05 season and a handfull before that showed what the system is capable. Grooming was effective when there was snow and equipment was above the ice level. Not all bad but some clubs probably think they need better funding and so do the others on the opposite side of the fence. The guys with big miles prob deserve more funding but the clubs with more traffic prob deservice more too. Equal funding for clubs based on milage groomed, there is no magic too it, all passes into one pool and the groomed mile reports submitted on a weekly basis. K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) and we will all be fine.

I would like to see snowmobile registration and the snopass combined like Saskatchewan.

Right now there are too many people that think that is their god given right to ride on trails for free (don't want to pay 4 a pass). Somehow this has got to change.

I think they should make the clubs more accountable. Seeing they get the money in the end. They turned four groomers into U boats this winter . A little common sense please. Your Snow pass coin just went into repairs instead of grooming. Also when you get your pass make sure to fill in were you want the money to go to. Some dealers that sell them (won't mention who) will fill it in for you and they'll have a nice trail right up to thier cottage. PAY FOR WHERE YOU RIDE. I for one would like to see the passes tagged to the sled registration. That would get rid of the free loaders :frech32: . A better audit of the trail system by SNOMAN that would enforce proper signage and directions (Have gotten spun around on the trails pretty good in some places). We don't need any more new trails that go out to the middle of nowhere. Just maintain what we have with ecception to widening and twining the existing trail system. I know it was a crappy year for trail grooming and I hope next season will be better. With fuel prices going up the passes for next season will more than likely be going up. But the price we pay now is still reasonable. :div20:

big fuse,
i buy my passes,BUT id say [guessing here] 85% only ride weekends, fortunatly i can ride any time,
those who come out weekends, what do they find, trails beat to hell from ,tues,wends, thursday grooming, i can say the biggest complainers are weekend riders,,and i dont blame them ,Hell ,ive going riding weekends with the kids, THINKING ,what the hell am i doing here on a sunday ESPECIALLY,you wonder why some say screw the pass fee?

heres a idea, park the groomers out of eye sight on weekends,when the weekend sledders goes to fuel up,ask if the sledder following him seen his kidney fall out on the trail, and then wonders why the groomer is parked there ,

bigfuse Posted Today, 09:53 PM
Right now there are too many people that think that is their god given right to ride on trails for free (don't want to pay 4 a pass). Somehow this has got to change

YA GROOMING !!!!!! Is a good place to start!,
oh, and the groomer breaking down the first weekend, is crap, heard that to often

I have no problem with them adding it to the registration, but;
Government will add costs for processing, also would their still be an early season reduced rate system in place. I always buy my passes in Oct so it costs less. Whichever way, we need less red tape with a simple to implement system, which does not turn into a Government tax grab.

DUPPYPOG

I agree with the idea of including Snopass fees with registration.

I think there is some room for improvement and accountability..... I am a little ticked... I ride in the eastern Whiteshell and belong to a certain club (and sell their raffle tickets). My cottage is on the fringe of their trails. My problem is that I (and others in the area) have to ride 12 kilometers of ungroomed to get to the groomed trail. The kicker is that this 12 km of ungroomed trail is designated trail and is straight, flat and dry (easy/safe grooming) and the club ignores it. It has relatively low traffic volume and consequently would require minimal grooming, but it gets none. Mean while the club puts one of their groomers through the ice on a treacherous piece of trail that, perhaps, should have been left for a little more cold weather.

Just my little bitch...

Are you saying that this section of designated trail was not groomed at all this winter? Was it because of the groomer breaking through the ice?

I live south of Winnipeg and the trails aren't the best well they are all in the ditches. I pay for the pass because i go up to whiteshell and marchand however my friends about 10-12 of them do not pay for the pass.

Why you ask I don't really blame them they are in the ditch (crown land no) and the are barelly groomed. Very hard because of the wind and open fields. Besides the point I would like to see it blend in with our insurance. What's 150 more when you pay 600-1000 for insurance.

Soem clubs work WAY HARDER and put in more time than probably 3 clubs put together.

miles groomed=money per mile easiest way i see it.

this might be crazy but put some of the price in the atv insurance so we get more money. I pay 250 for a year for my insurance for my quad up that by 50 shit i am still laughing. WILL NEVER HAPPEN BUT YOU NEVER \KNOW

The trail was not groomed at all this past winter. The club might want to use it as an excuse, but they do have a second smaller groomer which they continued to use to groom another trail which intersects with the trail that I refer to.

Xc Special ................... :div20:

It's seems to be a common human failing.

Thanks

That is a great idea for you Southern riders, but there is no damn way I want to subsidize your groomed trails.

There has to be a way to not have to pay in areas where there is no club, as in the Northern part of the province.

Snowman has a pretty tough job to keep our 5 very different regions all happy and working together. I think they are doing OK and trying to make improvements.

I'd like to see the pass added right on our insurance . Then everyone has to pay it. Another bonus with that is don't really need to police it then.

The pass price will needs to go up, operating costs must be going way up with fuel prices and they ain't gonna go down long term.

I like the idea of discounts for being a member of a club. Maybe we charge 200 with out and 125 with or something like that. I'll tell ya, people are going be joining clubs then.

It bugs me when it's rough but with the amount of traffic I see it's no wonder. I think overall we do pretty good job but we can improve.

One last thing ... Is it winter yet

Polaris Dave, I have ridden the trails in your area the past three seasons. The last two rides have been with members from the Brokenhead Trail Blazers club. The trails in the area are some of the best I ridden anywhere.

As an outsider, I really can't comment on the snowpass system. As a consumer of your trails, I would hate to see anything that causes them to deteriorate. It is a great resouce and one that I enjoy using. If that means I would have to pay more to use it, I would be fine with that as it is well worth it. :div20:

some clubs work hard to keep their trails in good shape and others don't seem to care. brokenhead seem to be on top of things with grooming done all the time and other clubs it seems if you aren not there on the day after groomin which is once every two weeks you are on bad trails. If money is the issue than it seems like an eay solution, i moved here from nb and trail passes there are in the 140 range, and no one questions the price.
If riding on nice trails any day you choose to go out was only going to cost you an extra 40 or 50 dollars wouldn't that be worth it. You spend more than that on one day riding without thinking about it.
Up the price of trail passes and link it with the regestration so the cheapo's can't get away without buying one. And pay the clubs for what they groom not kms of trail.

This worked reaallllllyy well in Saskatchewan this year (and we even dropped the price ).

So what do you do about people who plate for insurance but have no trails to ride? Charge them too? Who's the cheapo then?

Constructive suggestions:

1. Get the current trail pass enforced.
2. Tie trail pass to registration for easy on stop shopping, BUT allow people to opt out of trail fee when they pay for registration.
3. Get the trail pass enforced.
4. Send a survey out to EVERY registered sledder in the province with their plate renewal letter to get their opinion on options. Make the choices fair, not slanted towards "everyone pays regardless of if they have/ride groomed trails or not"
5. Enforce the trail pass.
6. Listen to ALL REGISTERED sledders opinions and do what the majority ask for. Remeber, these people are already honest and paying for plates, so you don't want to lose their support to the the "I don't pay for anything" crowd because they are forced against their will to support a private association whose services they don't use.
7. Enforce the trail pass and make those who don't pay (for trail passes) but use (groomed trails) your target, not those who pay (for plates) and don't use (groomed trails).

Every post has its key points, this is really simple, I quoted the key areas of Deep Freeze's post for all the nay sayers to review. The pricing and payout of our current system is nothing without enforcement.

Clubs do an excellent job in the eastern region. These are the busiest trails in MB becuase they are closest to the largest City in MB.

Everyone has to pay i.e. buy a pass and all riders have to enforce it make everyone pay their fair share.

Why weren't the trail updates in the Free Press this year nor was SnoMan's telephone line updated with conditions. Both should be done.

Also clubs have to let SnoMan know by Wednsday night or Thursday morning the condition of their trails and if they don't they should be penalized. Clubs also need to report on the amount of snowfall not just if they are groomed because we love to ride in the early season and late season before grooming beginings and after it ends. This must be done for the sport to survie, it costs far too much money for a sled and the season is far too short. Far too many slders pack it in when teh snow is gone in WPG but it last 4 weeks longr only a short distance away eg. Seddons Corner, Sandilands, Grand Beach were good in April still this year.

I agree as well that trail passes must be tied into the insurance for sled. Secondly until then the fine must be big enough that a person who does not have a pass will be hurt by it. All snowmobilers have to take a little responsibility on themselves to check other sleds when they stop to see if they have a pass. A little razing never hurts.

I would also like to see Snoman offer up ATV maps for the summer (only) many of us quad as well, it's a great way to keep many of the trails clear from debris.

As unfortunate as it is some clubs need to be shut down or amalgamated with others. They are the backbone of the system but you can't allow clubs to continue if they do not have the ability to maintain the trails. Secondly, it would be much more cost effective for many of these clubs to work together share a reliable groomer and be able to pay the operator at least a stipend - wouldn’t it be nice to have grooming 7 days a week?


The province must anti up some cash, they don't even produce a snowmobile guide to the various regions and accommodations. This last year we went all over the province, try and find accommodations close to the trail it's next to impossible till you get up there. There are so many great places out there to ride but you need reliable info, with the cost of travel these days you don’t what to be screwing around the entire weekend.

Since there are so many snowmobilers out of Winnipeg it would be nice to see a club get started here that raises funds and volunteers to help many of the clubs near the city that we all use on a regular basis, what would be wrong with holding a few socials and raffles every year?

Anyway I have had the opportunity to talk to the ED at snowman many times and he has a lot of great ideas but it takes time and support from people like you and me.

I believe passes must be tied to autopac and also must increase in price. As far as the issue of fund dispersement goes, that's tougher. I can understand both sides of the arguement. At the end of the day i think the most sought after and travelled trails should receive more funding. While the trails could always be better, i've always been happy (for the most part) with the job the clubs are doing.
Pace31, I belong to a Winnipeg based club, Snowstompers. We fundraise and donate to various clubs in the province for signeage.
More people should belong to a club. Don't bitch about any of this if you don't.
Finally, i agree with all who would like to see better enforcement of the pass system. A $250 fine for a first offence followed by a $500 for a second should suffice, and maybe a tip line.

Hey chrischaos it's great you guys have a Winnipeg club but I could not find it on the Snoman web site you might want to get it up. It's pretty hard to join something if you don't know it exists - I don't know the cost on these things but maybe web page might be a good idea as well Snoman has all the clubs listed prominently with websites. Anyway congrats on raising funds for the various clubs out there and if you could include contact info for the club, meeting schedule etc. that would be great.

I've never been asked for my snow pass ever and I buy one every year....




Rick

The idea of adding the sno-pass fee to the registration sounds good, but I have a couple of big concerns about that approach:

#1) if Sno-man needs "X" number of dollars to administer the fund, do you think the "highly efficient" provincial gov't will be able to do it for less? I would guess that any perceived savings would be wiped out by the province charging to administer the snofund, and I would assume that would be 3 to 5 times what it costs us to have sno-man look after the sno-fund. (The Man. Gov't ain't going to work for free just to support us snomobilers who spend god knows how much money on gas taxes every year.) Maybe we should try to get the province to give us back part of the gas taxes we pay every year to help fund the grooming effort.

#2) I can't verify this, but I have heard that registrations in Saskatchewan were way down this year because too many people objected to paying the extra price for grooming. Now you have a situation where the snowmobile coming at you on the wrong side of the trail may not have a sno-pass or insurance!! Doesn't that sound like good situation to be in!

#3) The people that live where there are no clubs or groomed trails shouldn't have to pay for a service that they aren't getting. That just makes the rest of us look like freeloaders too.

Hey, the system is far from perfect but the way I see it, that's just a fact of life. There is a big difficulty with coming up with a system that is fair to all clubs, but we have to come up with a formula for funding that every club can live with. It would have to be a formula based on # of kilometeres groomed, trail usage and sno-passes sold and maybe length of season. Maybe some of the smaller clubs that are close together would have to amalagamate or co-operate to have 1 newer, reliable groomer, rather than 2 or 3 older ones that are broken down for half the winter.

And finally, DAMMIT, WE NEED MORE ENFORCEMENT!! If we could get that, maybe a lot of the freeloaders would find out that it gets expensive when you get caught without a so-pass. If everyone using the trails were paying for them, we would likely have a lot more money in the sno-fund. Up here in Thompson, this past winter, we hade several enforcement weekends, and guess what happened??
The local club sold more snopasses than they ever had, even though this winter was not the best sledding season, with low snow, poor ice conditons and a slow start to getting snow at all. ENFORCEMENT WORKS!! We just have to get snoman to get on D.N.R.'s and the RCMP's backs to get the job done.

Sorry for the rant, but I feel better now :doh:

We were in Renie a couple years ago for lunch and when we left a park Ranger came up and asked a buddy where his .pass was. It was in his pocket he couldn't get it to stick apparnetly so he kept it in his pocket. It was kind of comical the Ranger says ... it doesn't stick huh try it out .... guess what it stuck like you know what to a blanket, I was chuckling under my helmet :smilielol:

I was suprised first time in tousands of miles me or anyone I was with was asked. So sometimes people are watching. We always have them anyhow.

The groomers they have are stupid, u could do a far better job with a snowmobile pulling a blade behind it rather than the 400 ton atrocity they use now, that go figure, goes thru ice. I saw a few fall thrus this winter, that I didn't even know was ice. Wolf Trail/ Bear Trail was very nicely groomed, why? because the big expensive groomer they use broke down, and they had to use their small old one, which worked perfect. So where are you snopass funds going? they go to the danr groomers. 10-20 million dollar groomers. and they just keep buying bigger ones. I pay my snopass every year without question, but it pisses me off what they do with my money.


But it doesn't help that many snomobilers are cheap, not saying all are, but many are. or maybe it just seems that way because they stand out. but do any of you know that gas station past lac du bonnet, called Trappers. I was on the big 500 mile run to Kenora, and when i got back, this guy pules up, and says to the owner of trappers. "you gas is to expensive, just give me 5 bucks and that will get me to lac du bonnet". Gez if i was the owner, i woulda been like "How bout i give you no gas and lets see how far you get" and walk away. of course, as a rule for myself, I always fill up at every gas station. Gas companies make the huge money, but gas stations do not, and I want convienently located gas stations like Trappers to stay open, so I fill up there whenever I can, even if his prices are a bit more.




And snopass apart of registration, I like how that would work. Just force people to buy it, but again, the lack of enforcement ruins any ideas for the future. I don't think ive ever seen a cop or anything ever while on the trails, and I drove into ontario and accross falcon lake and everything. actually, even on the kenora trip, we ran into cops and theyt directed us accross.... the rules said we had to put our day pass on our windshield.... i sure didnt, and the cop didn't even care. (i wasnt gonna put that glue on my windshield).

So obviously there is room for improvment, but we are ahead of many provinces, its unfair to compare to saskatchuwan, i went riding there, its all high speed riding and not much for difficult terrain. it was nice, but a bit boring (nothing is more exciting than guiding ur skii's of cracks in the ice on the train uphill thru the bush while ur track is sliding on the ice (do i sounddanger happy??? lol).


Well anyways, its still lots of fun, the trails would last a lot longer if ppl showed some consideration. Like dont drive down the middle of the trail, dont drive down the middle of the trail at 100 KMPH then hammer the breaks on every corner. Dont try and chew up the trail. I ride my sled hard and ive never blown a belt before, but I see others blowing them all the time, but its usually the same guy that jumped the beaver dam on a corner and his sled is still in the trees on the other side.
"Respect the trails and they will respect you"

I think passes attached to insurance are a great idea.

I believe Snowman for this year has changed their payouts to clubs. They get a base payment for the amount of kilometers of trail system each club has, then every grooming has to be documented and clubs are paid out the kilometer groomed, but they also have some sort of max. paid out to prevent unnecessary grooming.

ive always bought a snow pass aslong with my dad and anybody that rides with us!

A guy who I work with will not buy a trail pass. He says that the trails are always rough, they will always be rough on weekends because of all of the traffic. (common sense) I do buy a trail pass like yourself. I was pretty fortunate to ride on some really decently groomed trails. However some were so bad they seemed like they weren't groomed for 2 years. LOL. I don't get it. People can afford an expensive sled, accessories, gas, oil, trail side entertainment, but mention trail pass and they wail like a banshee about a less than $100 touch for a snow pass.

I think it should be included in your insurance and yes waveraven is rite there is alot of people driving on the trails more and more. Just my 2 sence.

I like the idea of adding the cost to the insurance it works for me. The trails around our cabin never got groomed this past year so maybe that would give us back our trails.

As far as getting the passes enforced more than they are, forget it. We don't have the man power available in this province. We don't have enough officers to deal with Criminal Code offences never mind the Off Road Vehicles Act.

I think were going to have to enforce it ourselves. :frech32:

I always hear guys say, "I don't buy a pass cause they never groom the trails." What they don't realize is they don't have money to groom the trails because nobody is buying passes and round and round it goes :banghead: