6:00 PM at 3C Guiding in Laramie WY
Officers Present: Mitch (secretary), Cameron (president), Sunny (treasurer), Justin (VP),
Heather (social media officer), Keith (business liaison).
We had a BBQ for everyone that came. Burgers, hot dogs, cookies, chips. Thanks to Justin for cooking the food!
Snow Report: Cameron said it was headlight deep fresh up top on Tuesday of this week. The snow has stacked up recently. Beacon check point at Lake Marie is nearly buried. If anyone wants to dig it out to raise it up, please feel free!
Assorted: We’ll need to find a place to store the Lake Marie safety shelter this summer, City of Laramie won’t be okay with keeping it on Cameron’s land in town. Justin may have a place for it. Over in the Sierra’s the Adopt a Highway is available at the main parking area. We’d like to grab that and involve folks in the Saratoga valley. We’ll also need to cut firewood for the Sierra hut next fall too.
Events: April 20th BBQ at Lake Marie. Food at noon. This will be our April meeting too.
AAIRE Avy Level 2 Class: 3C hosting, first weekend in April. Email Cameron at
Cameron@3CGuiding.com if you’re interested and want more information. This will include a Rescue class on day 1, so if you’ve taken a Level 1, you’re all set to take this. There’s space
and it will be a great class!
Avalanche Forecasting: Sheriff Bakken in Carbon County is working with Wyoming Outdoor
Recreation Collaborative and USFS to try to secure a grant (State Recreation Board) to start a Level 2 Avalanche Forecasting Center for the Snowy Range and Sierra Madres. This is a
$500,000 grant to fund a center for 3 years, after which the USFS would take over (similar to how Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center is run). He has requested a letter of support from us. We are happy to support this effort. Heather volunteered to write the letter of support. The deadline is likely April 1 so we’ll get this out quickly.
WSSA Update: WSSA is going to add a calendar on their website to list out all the activities of Wyoming snowmobile clubs. Fun Days was in Dubois this year. Too much snow for groomers to go out, so the “mellow trail ride” ride was interesting and involved breaking trail. Sounded like it was good time. They raised funds for the WSSA Scholarship program, totaling nearly $30,000, and 8 scholarships were given out this year. Next WSSA meeting is this fall. The meeting will be September 14th in Buffalo, WY.
Stemming from the scholarship discussion, Sunny had an idea: discounted SRSC memberships for people that are club members in their hometown but living here currently (e.g., students), to try to increase younger generation participation. Focusing their membership more on getting together and riding may be an attractive way to get them interested: meet fellow riders around their age and ambition level.
State Trails: Looking at increasing the permit fee from $30 to $50. Same price for resident & nonresident. Haven’t had a price increase in ~10 years. 2⁄3 of funds come from nonresidents. This will take legislation to take effect; the club is in support of it. Note that the State will be reinstating the online permit process in about 3 months after a brief hiatus.
Nelson & Quealy huts coming out first week of April. Trail markers coming out that week too and grooming will cease. We’ll want to advertise this on socials to warm visitors.
Parking: April 25th meeting with SWORC & USFS. This is for the Ehlin Road parking area.
There may be an opportunity to seek out a grant from the Recreation funds from the State to help support this.
Cameron’s idea: would like to have local OSV permit sales to include parking guidelines for
Green Rock. Small pamphlet sort of thing to help give people some guidance, since the parking situation up there is chaos. People are getting mixed messages and authorities aren’t taking ownership of enforcement (Sheriff’s office, USFS LEO’s, WY-Highway Patrol, all saying it is the other ones job/jurisdiction). Signage may be more effective at reaching all users? Would need permitted with WY-DOT. This may help most with a consistent message and clarity for all users. Maybe 6 or so signs to cover it, specifically calling our “Winter Parking Rules” or something to that effect.
Treasurer Update: $18786.89 in checking. $252.80 transfer from PayPal in progress from
recent memberships. We need to file our non-profit federal taxes via a 990 form. We have until May 15th of this year.
Secretary Update: 121 members for this season to date. Thank you all for the support.
Carbon County Sheriff Bakken sent us an invitation for an in person thank you for our recent $750 donation to their SAR team. None of us were available to attend but he wanted to be sure we knew they were grateful. Albany County SAR is also very appreciative of the donation and continued support over the years.
Broader Wyoming Related: Bridger-Teton forest travel management plan is in progress.
They’ve got a website & want public comments submitted there. This will have a large impact on snowmobiling on the B-T forest. More info to follow separately with links.
Laramie, Wyoming