Keeping wheeled vehicles off groomed trails

[94fordguy]

I think the snow berm idea is a great one. If I were in charge that's what it would be. Just make a physical barrier that would stop most problems.

Around here we have the 2 basic kinds of groomer setups... the standard snow cat with plow blade and tiller that can make a 6 ft tall, pointy berm and still drive over it, or a cat with a plow and a mogul buster drag behind it... in that area I think he can get over about a 3 ft berm, but its still enough to stop pretty much everything but a sled. The only time we ever have problems is when the jeepers try to start busting over them in the late spring with their 44" swampers, otherwise we never see anything but sleds on our trails... works good.

 

[sdsnocop]

The berm barricade works well if you can maintain it. It is too time consuming for our groomers to maintain a berm at every trail parking lot, lodge or plowed road crossing. Every time the groomer passes through these locations they flatten out the berm and in many situations they would have to unhook the drag (and hydraulics) to rebuild the berm. A 2-3 foot trail base doesnt always prevent wheeled vehicles from driving the trails. Sometimes especially in very cold weather the trails will set up very hard after being groomed and can support a vehicle very well until they spin out going up a hill, get too close to the edge, or fail to get off the trail before the sun softens the trail and the sleds chew it up. I have found vehicles that have driven over 10 miles on a 1-2 foot trail base. I once had to drive a Honda Civic down a curvy wooded snowmobile trail in reverse 2.8 miles because we had no way to turn it around. We use signs and wooden barricades to block and mark snowmobile trails off limits to wheeled vehicles but people still drive around them. As far as sharing snowmobile trails with ATV's some states do share snowmobile trails but I would not recommend it. I assisted as a test operator with a study on the effects of ATV's on snowmobile trails and learned if you get too close to the edge of the trail and the right front wheel dives into the snow you do a end over end very quick. After the first face plant you tend to ride the middle of the trail instead of the right side. It is difficult enough dodging the newby's on rentals without having to worry about the atv's and utv's taking me out in corners. Just my opinion besides snowmobiles have 4 months to use their areas and the atv's have the remaining 8 months to do their thing. If they want to ride in the winter there usually are plenty of areas available in lower elevations where they will not effect snowmobilers.
PS I am a ATV owner too.

 

[AMSOILR]

Great input guys

WINTER IS BACK IN SOUTH EAST IDAHO......Wow we have snow! I've had to plow the last 2 days. All the warm weather people are whining. SDSNOCOP you have great input. We need to hire you come to Idaho and give those in charge a pep talk. As they say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. For those that don't see a problem, your not on the trail enough. It's like SDSNOCOP says, you don't turn a vehicle around on a groomed trail. The shoulders are soft and you are stuck. Any way great input guys!

 

[Desperado]

You guys missed my point, I never said the sledder was not at fault, this post is about vehicles, or things that are on GOOMED trails that generally are NOT expected to be or are NOT ALLOWED TO BE and are tearing up the groomed trails and the laws or regs pretaining to what can or can NOT be on the system. My point with the horses were 1 (safety ever been around spooked or startled horses?) I don't care how fast or slow you are going on a GROOMED trail the two users coming together unexpectedly can cause issues, same could be said for a stuck vehicle sidways in the trail and someone traveling down and unexpectidly encountering it, in the eastern Idaho case a horse was killed and sled totaled. 2 (Horses do not float on snow!!) Have you ever riden on a groomed trail after 3 ro 4 horses have gone up it? They tear the crap out of the groomed trail much like a wheeled vehicle would. Who pays for the grooming, not the wheeled vehicle or in my example the horseback rider, no it is the USERS "US". Look if other users such as wheeled vehicles or HORSES for that matter want to contribute to the groomed system fine so be it put signs up notifiying all who could be expected on the trail but if there are rules against vehicles or other objects that are not either designed for use on the snow then they should be held accountable and should pay for the repair (regrooming) part of the trail they runined.

 

[sdsnocop]

I totally agree with Desperato's safety concern with horses on the snowmobile trail. Unfortunately laws tend to place a higher level of restrictions on motor vehicles compared to non-motorized travel. When confronted with a potential safety issue between snowmobile and non-motorized traffic I only have the authority to advise the non-motorized user of the possible danger they could face by their snowmobile use. We have even had a dog sledder running on snowmobile trails at night with no lights.

PS went riding today (off duty) and guess what I found, A pickup stuck on the trail. The road is officially open for other traffic on April 1st. However he is stuck on a cattle guard completely blocking the road and it has snowed 3 feet since he got stuck.

 

[AMSOILR]

Desperado's right

Desperado is right, snowmobilers pay for the trail grooming. If it were not for us there would be no usable trails at all. There is a serious safety issue. You know as well as I do the speeds that some snowmobilers go down the trail. I've had friends going 100 mph on some long straight aways. It a disaster waiting to happen. Not only from other individuals, but from animals on the trail. We had a cow moose run across the trail just in front of us, as we were going 65 mph. I think there is a lot of room for improvement.

"WOW"We've had 2 good storms and today the sun came out. We had to do it. Here's a couple of pics. We made the first tracks everywhere.

Baldy without a track on it - 9500 feet

Powder was deep for this time of year
[IMG]http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww252/snowmotow/dcp_7022.jpg[/IMG]