Club Snow Inc. excited to see first snowfall, but still a long way from setting trails

While most drivers will hate that the snow's arrived in Portage, Club Snow Inc. wishes it fell sooner.

A big step has been made toward the beginning of snowmobile season, that being the first snowfall of the year, with the white stuff falling on October 25th. President Doug Atchison says they're in need of much more snow in order to be able to start up the trails, but that's not the only obstacle in the way.

"We need some severe cold weather first, before we have a large amount of snow," explains Atchison. "If we had a big dump of snow before the cold weather, the ground underneath won't freeze. We need to get down to the minus 10s, minus 15s to freeze the ground and freeze the water."

He adds they aren't sitting on their hands, however, as they've been able to start setting up some of the signs around the trails. Some spots have the trail signs up all year, while some areas need to have them removed for the summer, such as trails that go over certain farmland or properties.

"We'd like to get out and groom our trails before Christmas," says Atchison. "Unfortunately, there's been years where that didn't happen until maybe the first or second week of January based on snow conditions."

Atchison notes snowmobiling season usually kicks off around the beginning of December, stretching to the end of March. They'll wait to see six to ten inches of snow before opening the trails.

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