We had our meeting last night and as it turns out ,the pass prices are going up to 95 & if I'm correct 125 after Dec.1.The passes are not going to be integrated for the coming year,but apparently in the works.Sorry for the news.

Thanks for the update. Were there any decisions made about enforcement?

What's the reason for the increase, fuel costs ?

I also heard the same last night. The pass price increase needs to be approved by Conservation first, I believe.
There's an upcoming meeting to discuss Integration. It's not officially dead. Before the end of the month we should know if Integration is going to happen or not.

The best way to express your concern about Integration (for or against) is to canvass your local MLA, and ask your MLA to relay your concerns to the Minister of Conservation.

Arguing about it on a forum and using old analogies to support these arguments is accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Didn't hear anything about enforcement,but would assume it will be the as in past years.

From what I understand,that is part of it.But believe it or not,and this will be denied,is that the government when involved will have to look good,so the hefty increase will be knocked down when the passes are integrated.Thereby the government looks good when they lower the prices upon integration.

No not the NDP government, say it ain't so.

do you really believe the gov't will drop the price????
and if they did how long do you think it will last????
as much as I'm against the intergration.....if the gov't is involved we are all screwed.

Thanks Dave! There are pages and pages of this dispute both here and Trackshare, and it allmeans nothing until it hits the Gov's hands, I'm all for it if it betters our current system, and $95 is still cheapier then an ON pass, so I'll pay to play I guess!!

I agree, only until the government is out of the picture and finally get Manitoba to a user pay system that things will get better, and more expensive which is needed. Just look at the most succesfull trails in Canada and see what they cost there. They are true user pay systems. The sooner Snoman quits taking handouts from the government the better. The government could give money to support snowmobiling but it would have to be put in a general Snoman kitty, not the way it is done now.

I seen something the other day which I thought was smart. In NB, I think it was, 10 year old sleds only pay something like 60% and 20 year old sleds, called antiques, even pay less. That sounds like something that would work here. Those sleds are most likely going to be using the trails less, therefore costing the trail system less.

$95 is more than 4 times what some states charge. MN, ID, and MT are all under 35 dollars for a yearly pass. Just because we're cheaper than Ontario doesn't make it right.

Make an even $100 with no increase after December 1. Pay to play!!!

but they get funded for grooming by the state. manitoba could care less about trying to make money in the long run

How many riders do you think will be riding next season as opposed to this past season?

Gasoline is now $1.209 a litre which works out to $5.50 an imperial gallon. If gasoline goes to $6.00 or $7.00 by next winter, what then?

So, maybe (and that is a big maybe) the price will come down in a year or so if Manitoba puts registration and pass fees together. Will today's rider be able to afford to take as many rides as they are doing now on a cheaper pass?

This would be more of a concern for me than the price of the pass.

why not take 95 out of your wallet, put it in the back of the sled. when the passes come out, take the money out, and pay for it. ive done it for other stuff. never had a problem as i knew where the money was, but it went to a certain thing and i worked one more day of the week to make the money up.

The states you mention are heavily subsidized by the government and they have a much larger population base to support the sport. Same reason that most Americans pay less property tax than the average Canadian.

What do you think we should pay based on the number of trail riding sledders in the province? and how would you distribute the funds to ensure that all trails get groomed weekly?

Back up your complaint with a suggestion on how it could be better.

Handouts?

Snoman hasn't received a cash handout from the Province since it's inception (except maybe picking up the costs to print the Snopasses).

There's no problem with money going to the general pot. It would get divvied up appropriately.

As far as I understand, the government must approve all Snopass price increases because it affects the snowmobile act. That's the way it has been from day one. The government has no say in how the funds are divided throughout the province.

I do agree that pro-rating, based on when you register your sled and also a different rate for vintage sleds be adopted. It would encourage more people to buy the pass without the feeling that they are getting shafted.

A few suggestions.

A) We all pay a fuel tax, but that's supposed to be used for our roads. What about trails?

B) Force clubs to become more efficient in the use/distribution of equipment. Does every "club" need their own groomer and the associated maintenance? What if there were 1/2 the groomers running more often, rather than sitting in a shed 6 days a week?

C) Promote tourism and the sport of snowmobiling in Manitoba. Drop the price of a weekend/non resident pass to encourage people to visit.

Just thinking out loud.

By handouts I am referring to the 7 provincial parks that the MB government currently pays to maintain the trails with taxpayers dollars and Snoman charges a fee to use the trails. It is not fair to the other clubs. Since the government is using taxpayers dollars for the trails in the parks there should be no extra user fees above the park permit to use them. Imagine telling cross country skiers in the parks that they need a trail permit, on top of a park permit, to ski on provincially funded trails, or even telling hikers the same thing. I believe Falcon Lake now has an ATV trail, should I pay an extra fee for that one too?

I wonder what a Snoman snopass would cost if the government no longer funded the trails in the provincial parks and made Manitoba a user-pay system. I would think it would be pretty close to Quebec/Ontario.

We have a snowmobile act???? We haven't had a snowmobile act in years!! ORVA.

What I meant to refer to is the Crown Lands Act, this subsection:
http://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/regs/pdf/c340-217.94.pdf

Some good points raised there!

Agreed. What I do not agree with is that Snoman subsudizes one of the clubs that "operates" in the Whiteshell. IMO, Snoman should not be putting pass money into the Whiteshell at all. It's a provincial park and the province should pay all costs for grooming, equipment, signage, trail brushing and shelters. I believe that some some Snoman funding is being used within the park. That Snopass money going into the park could be going to benefit all of the other clubs in the Eastern region.

if snoman didnt put money into it, the trails would be the shits. the current goverment doesnt hand money out for anything. they would laugh, and close the door. took at the condition of the parks. some of them are terrible in the summer.

Good luck with that idea. Putting a trail through any government lands or privates lands is one and the same. You want a trail to go through a certain area, then you build and maintain it . All responsibilities are the onus of the club or organization putting in the trails.

You can't sell your idea of provincial parks spending money on trails and at the same time ask riders to pay for the use of those trails. That's like putting two hands into the pockets of riders who buy a trail pass.

Whoever is responsible for trail costs is responsible for collecting the money.

Just like private landowners, towns and cities, government parks can refuse to let snowmobiles into the parks.

Well I don't know if it had changed since I lived in the interlake.....but Hecla Island was groomed by the govermnet and the nice shacks were also built by them. The government wants to promote tourism but you say that it would be a tough sell for the gov to spend them cash?? Who in the heck would go to some of these places if it wasn't for snowmobiling in the winter? I don't care who the snofund money goes to ...but if the club isn't spending money on grooming and signing it should go to another club that is having troubles staying afloat. Who, when , how....don't know.

The province groomed the parks long before Snoman came along. They also built the original shelters, cut the wood and marked the trails.
Grand Beach park still grooms their trails and gets no Snoman funding. Grand Beach park actually used to groom outside the park and usually made 2 trips per winter all the way south to our clubhouse. It was a 2 day trip for the government employees.
The idea of the Snofund should be to help the clubs raise funds to keep their trail systems running, not to subsidize already established provincial parks. This just shows how committed to snowmobiling our government really is.
My opinion.

thanks for pointing this stuff out....see sleds and riding existed before snowman!
(once again a snoman advocate is acting like snowmobiling was invented by snowman)

anyways, these government employees that ran the groomers, did they work at the park? was it DNR officers?
do you know what years this was?

kudos to the Grand Beach club for not joining the snowman group....maybe they could be looked at as role models for the other clubs.

Yes I'm an advocate of Snoman, but our club had many groomers and groomed many trails before Snoman came along, so I don't know why you would say that. I am well aware of our roots. Our club originally opened up a trail north (now the Jim Longbottom Trail) back in 1981.

Yes, DNR employees, not officers. It was mid 1980s. By the end of the 80's the groomer was not allowed out of the park any more.

I was referring to the Grand Beach Park, not the club. Both the Northstar club and the Victoria Beach club belong to Snoman. Northstar Hillclimbers groom around the park and actually run through the park with their groomer to be able to complete their loop system.

The same SV200 groomer still grooms ski and snowmobile trails INSIDE the park boundary.

I know some of the history in the Grand Beach area because I owned a cottage at Lakeshore Heights. I also did my first snowmobiling in the Winnipeg Beach area. During those times, in the 60's and 70's, there wasn't any groomed trails both in the parks and for that matter, anywhere else. We just rode the lake and anywhere we found a trail. We didn't know crown land from Crown Royal and we didn't know or really care about private lands. Snowmobiling at that time was an "adventure" and machines were developing and changing very rapidly.

Your answer is somewhat perplexing.

I don't see the Manitoba system as being a true "user pay" system, and for the following reasons. You presently have the Manitoba government grooming park trails, and for all intents and purposes you want them to continue the grooming, maintain the trails, maintain the shelters, chop firewood, maintain signage, bear all the costs that are involved BUT you advocate that Snoman should not give any money towards their costs. On the same hand you want Manitoba riders (both passed and un-passed as far as I understand) to ride the trails without any mention of payment. You also advocate that Snoman shouldn't be paying anything towards defraying those costs. In the end, it's the park users, property owners who have cottages in the parks, who buy a park permit during summer season and the governments (taxpayers) who are funding and bearing the cost of the provincial parks snowmobile trail system in our parks.

Some here justify this permission to ride for free in the parks as promoting winter tourism. At what cost? I would think that the costing of maintaining the park snowmobile trail system doesn't justify the benefits of snowmobiling tourism in the parks. These employees of the DNR don't come cheap - not minimum wage pay scale and not volunteers.

That's a helluva deal if you can swing it.

I now have a better understanding of why there is such a wide disparity between the prices of Ontario and Manitoba trail passes and why the hue and cry from Manitoba riders. Correct me if I wrong if my understanding of the present system is incorrect.

If I was in the Manitoba Government, I sure would be looking at including those park costs into the combined registration/pass price.

I now have a much better understanding of why the disparity between the prices of Ontario and Manitoba trail passes, and why the hue and cry when Manitobans discuss the price of the Ontario trail pass. An honest and fair comparison between the two systems isn't possible.

This also brings up another interesting question. How would you justify asking Ontario or any other visiting riders to buy a Manitoba trail pass, that includes riding in, for example, Nopiming Park? To me, this appears to be Snoman collecting money for a trail system that they would not be paying for but charging visitors to ride on those trails. Isn't there a legal issue there by misrepresenting the reason for collecting money by Snoman to ride in a park, or would Snoman return a portion of that money to the Manitoba government?

My understanding is that the provincial parks (the gov't) pays to groom trails within the park. Sno-fund money (from SnoMan) is distributed to clubs for trail work outside of the provincial parks (the provincial forests, crown land, highways ditches, private land, etc). Check with your local clubs or SnoMan and you'll get the same answer. There is not supposed to be any double dipping.

Does your Manitoba trail pass allow you to ride in a provincial park or do you have to pay something to ride the park trails in addition to paying for your trail pass? If the answer is yes, then the Manitoba riders are riding for free on the park trail systems that is not being paid for by trail pass riders or from Sno-fund - Snoman coffers.

Yes, that's correct. Taxpayers are paying. I'm not sure if anything has changed recently with respect to the Whiteshell.

Nopiming Park trails are not groomed by the province.
The only parks that are groomed by the government to my knowledge are Spruce Woods, Grand Beach, Birds Hill, Whiteshell and maybe Paint Lake? There might be more.

Who else knew about that?

Who pays for grooming within Ontario's Provincial Parks?

it would be nice if we could have reciprocal arrangements with neighboring provinces and states for access to use trails based on having your local permit (like we have with vehicle registration and drivers licenses). Granted there may be some challenges to ensure that it's not abused to the detrement of one side or the other (most likely the side with the higher fees would be the most concerned).

The short answer to your question is the riders who purchase the OFSC trail permits pay for the maintenance of trails in the Ontario Provincial Parks.

The long version is this. The OFSC snowmobile clubs who operate in the areas of the provincial parks have landowner use agreements with the provincial parks, the same as if we were to install and maintain an OFSC trail through a private landowners farm, business, etc..

There is one exception, for example in the Haliburton park area that I am aware of. There is a "private" club that sells their own trail pass and also has their own trail system. The riders who hold an OFSC trail pass cannot ride on these private trails. A separate trail pass is required.

We only pay an extra $40.00 here in saskatchewan, and what I heard this week is the possibility of all provincial parks being groomed buy local clubs instead of Union gov't workers, It sound like the parks here is Sask are short on workers to continue gov't grooming, we will see what happens. I really like the sledding in Manitoba, especially the SPruce woods/ Carberry area. The off trail riding is great because of the sandy soil, it's hard to ever find a rock, unlike the moose mtns, rocks are a plenty around here.

This year, instead of just keeping a running total of our volunteer hours, our volunteer coordinator decided to start to categorize some of the work areas with regards to how many hours were necessary to maintain our trails.

The STR has a core volunteer staff that numbers approximately 50 people, which includes everyone one from the executive to the trail people.

Total numbers accumulated for all the volunteers was 4,470 hours for the 2007/2008 season.

Grooming hours for two groomer volunteers was 683 hours for actual trail grooming. This doesn't include servicing and repairs to the equipment.

Trail volunteer hours which included brushing, tree cutting, stake and signage installation at the beginning of the season and stake and signage removal at the close of the season was 1,447 hours.

The balance was committee and executive hours which includes our meetings, events planning, trail pass handling (selling, pickup up from vendors, entering numbers into the system), risk management, trail patrols, transporting groomer operators to the groomer stations, personnel class upgrades, out of town meetings, website and all electronic communication, etc..

Next year we hope to have a more finite collection of numbers.

Is it true that in Ontario the gov't supplies the clubs with the groomers? The club is responsible for fuel and maintenence I don't know about breakdowns . When the clubs sell the passes there they keep a portion and only remit the amt to their club as required by each pass. Sounds good that the money would go to the club right off the bat to help with cost instead of sitting in say snowman bank account making interest for thm only to be paid out when they have to. 7 months later.

when you can buy the new snopasses?
i wanna get mine early.....those jackoffs should allow you to transfer them betweeen sleds...

what happens if you buy a sled in January? u gotta pay the full price?
rape..

110 buck last year. sucks for those that bought dragon 800's last year.

yeah
I don't mind buying one, but get it straight....
people don't wanna pay that much for a 2 months of riding...
reason why i have never ever bought a snopass..i don't care...and i ride the trails ocassionally!!

buy before dec 1st and use the savings for gas

if you buy a new sled after you've already gotten your pass I'm pretty sure that you can just transfer the plate (with the snopass sticker already on it). Technically Snoman might not allow it, but MPI won't care and how would anybody every really know the difference. If you are keeping your old sled as a backup, just get a new plate for it instead of the new sled.

If what you really want to do is use 1 pass for 2 sleds throughout the season, well then you are S-O-L.

I bought 2 manitoba passes last year and I searched through everything they gave me and there is no indication of where to put the sticker, neither on the sled, on the plate, or in your pocket!

I started this post just to inform everybody of the pending increase in prices,but many valid points have been raised(again).I myself have been buying passes for myself and my wife since the inception of sno passes.We ride mostly trails and I appreciate the work that goes into said trails.I am a volunteer for our club,and for the people out there that suggest they they don't ride any trail whatsoever(besides the north riders)I say bullshit.Buy a pass.

they are supposed to go on your plate (read the fine print)

I like it

Makes me wonder how a sno pass purchaser who looks so close where to put the sticker and says he can't find where it states to put it? Wonder if they can read a map?