Author: Mitch Helling

November 2023 SRSC Meeting Minutes

16NOV23, 1800 hours.

Secretary: Need to set up auto emails to remind people of monthly club meetings. Next one is December 21^st. Emails a week out & day of will be coordinated.

New safety shelter work has been going well. State Trails would like to bring the trailer up end of next week (Friday). Tipple Trailhead lot is a no go, needs to be right next to the bathrooms at the Lake Marie trailhead. They’re going to keep the bathrooms open this year. Cameron & Justin pulled the reefer off the front of the trailer. AD Martin is donating windows, doors, and materials to wall off the wood area from the shelter area. 3 windows going in. Need a first aid kit to go in it. Fill the hole from the reefer unit. Need a job box. Cody is about half done with the new wood stove, and he built the last one. Big thanks to him!

Work day this Saturday 11-18-23. Meet at 9:00 am Saturday to work on the hut. Materials will be rounded up Friday so everything’s ready to go Saturday for construction. They’ll install the center wall first, so that folks that come to help without construction skills can simply load firewood into it. Locations: Behind Gateway Fuels (the Shell Station), off Cleveland Road. Tools are welcomed but mostly we need hands. We’ll feed those that help; likely burgers and hot dogs, but TBD.

The other two huts need swept out, and traction tape in the entryways. Ropes that people hang gloves on needs replaced; a cable would work well. Keith will bring stuff on Saturday for this, and plans to head up to knock those jobs out. Also need to install the donation box in the second hut (only one was installed last year before snow hit).

State Trails will be printing maps this year.

Cameron has a promotional OnX Offroad maps code. 1 month free; hit him up if interested.

Scholarship info just came out from WSSA, keep an eye out for that. I’ll send out details soon. If interested reach out to Cameron, as the club has to verify the applicants are participating club members (or the student’s parent parent is, as per WSSA rules).

Treasurer Update: $17451.60 in our accounts. We will have some expenses soon, and some additional money coming in. Planning to donate more to the local SAR teams this winter (who will greatly appreciate it!).

Fundraiser grand opening idea for the new hut. We could likely get food donated towards it, do this once trails are in and we’re out riding. To be discussed further next meeting.

Cameron has been talking with Ray at Elway Powersports about a season kickoff party at the dealership. Bringing in food trucks could be a good way to go to feed people. Proposed December 16^th, need to check in with Ray. Cameron will also check with Brian Lundstedt at TBA to see if he can do another beacon search park like at a prior kickoff we had.  

WyoColo and Albany are the only places with food on the trail system this year. No restaurants in Ryan Park this season (maybe a frozen pizza at 10 Mile, but not a full restaurant).

Parking lot: the Sand Lake area had a gravel quarry active; their permit just ended. There was an expansion on parking in that area (summer parking). This is good news for winter parking, but much to be done on the bureaucratic side. For the parking near the USFS visitor center above Centennial, State Trails would groom to the old waste station site; along Ehlin Road and tie into T trail up top. Importantly, December 7^th at 4pm, the SWORC group is going to discuss the parking situation again. https://wyooutdoorrecreation.wyo.gov/index.php/outdoor-recreation-collaboratives/southeast-wyoming-outdoor-recreation-collaborative-sworc

Centennial USFS Visitor Center will be open this winter 8am -4pm Friday through Monday and they’ll be staffed. Christmas tree permits will be sold in there. Sled permits will be available there too.

Side note; the SWORC group is doing a Roger’s Canyon cleanup. https://wyooutdoorrecreation.wyo.gov/index.php/outdoor-recreation-collaboratives/southeast-wyoming-outdoor-recreation-collaborative-sworc

Wind River youth snowmobile racing starting in December near Pinedale. Additional info on back of November Wrangler.

Fun Days first week of March 2024 in Dubois. WSSA is working on online registration for this.

Sunny wants to do a Holiday Parade float in Laramie this year. Cameron is doing one for 3C Guiding so he’s not able to help day of. Justin willing to provide trailer & generator to run lights: thinking a few sleds parked on a trailer with Christmas lights strewn over them. Theme is Santa’s Toy Shop. Friday December 8^th at 6:30 PM. Meet Thursday the night before to prep; details to follow.

Zach is working on printing banners. We need to continue to round up logos from the business sponsors for these. Related: we also will do a permanent plaque for the new trailer/shelter to thank everyone that helped make it happen.

October 2023 SRSC Meeting Minutes:

October 19th 2023 at 3C Guiding

New Safety Shelter: In early October Wyoming State Trails program asked us what it would take for us to get a safety shelter at Lake Marie. Our officers told them we needed assurance that if we bought a trailer to use that it would be cleared to be used. We didn’t want to have a big outlay of cash to then be told we can’t use a trailer or it would otherwise not work. They checked with WY-DOT and got everything cleared. The trailer will be parked on WY-DOT land, not USFS, and as a trailer it will be towed in & out each season.

Two officers were brainstorming how to pay for this, and both thought they’d be happy to donate cash from their own businesses to support the cause and get some advertising. They realized others may feel the same way, and reached out to several businesses and many stepped forward to help out with cash donations, purchasing, trailer tires, materials to build it out as a shelter, and transporting it. Huge thanks to Frontier Cycles, Borderline Powersports, Front Range Powersports, A.D. Martin, Fremont Electric, Albany Lodge, 3C Guiding, Madden Contract Pumping, HyAltitude Contracting, Elway Powersports, and Elite Oil Field Services.

Special thanks to Elite for buying the trailer and committing to transporting it. The club will reimburse them for the purchase price less their donation. They’ve also brought it to Laramie from Cheyenne, and replaced the tires.

This past Saturday club members gathered in town then went up the mountain with trailers to load & haul firewood to town for the new shelter. Since the new shelter is going to be located on a Scenic Byway we can’t cut wood on site: it will be loaded up in town with a season’s worth then hauled in place ready to go. Thanks to everyone that came out & lended a hand loading, hauling, cutting and splitting.

Next up for the new trailer is to turn it into a safety shelter. We need to build interior walls, add an entry door, add a fireplace (Cody Schlager is building another bomber wood burner for us!), add benches and windows. We would also like to include 307-Aware signage, a donation box, and first aid kit. There’s a little more firewood prep left to do as well. Saturday November 18th is reserved for this work, 10am, meet at 3C Guiding shop.

Nelson and Quealy shelters: a little maintenance is needed. Refresh supplies. Add grip tape in the entry of one. Damaged window in another. These two safety shelters had wood cutting events already this fall. Thanks for all the help to those that pitched in their time & muscle!

Parking Lot update: Several Centennial local businesses are excited about the idea. No news from USFS at this time.

Treasurer Update: $11,007 in our account. $400 came in from the Denver Snow Show as memberships and donations.

Assorted:

Wyoming State Snowmobile Association website is set up to enable people to join clubs throughout the state.

There’s a push to shut down substantial public access to public BLM lands in the Sweetwater County area. Our neighbors out west need your support! More details in attachments.

General reminder about our Facebook “group” page: paid business members are free to advertise, no other advertisements allowed. We try to keep track of this but if you suspect a problem speak up.

Future Meetings:

Next Meeting: November 16th, 2023 at 6:00 PM. 3C Guiding shop in Laramie or on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81761499579 Meeting ID: 817 6149 9579

All monthly meetings are the 3rd Thursday of the month at 6PM. Same Zoom link as above.

Snowy Range Snowmobile Club

March 2023 Meeting Minutes

Started at: 6:05 PM 

Adjourned at: 6:49 PM. 

Attendance (in person/online): 13 in person. 6 online.

Membership Update: 124 total. Still working through differentiating the types and tabulating everyone. I have all new members in our contacts but working on the list for WSSA.

Spring BBQ: Lake Marie BBQ on April 1st, 2023. Meet at 9:00 AM at the 3C Guide shop. We can go for a morning ride, then meet at Lake Marie around noon for food. Come out, eat food (we’ll provide this) and ride sleds. Planning this will ensure it DUMPS snow! I’ll email this out separately. Keith is willing to haul stuff in for this with his tracked SxS the day before.

Assorted: Couple people have had issues with getting the beacon check sign to work. Batteries getting low? We need to get the signs out before they start opening the road. We may want to start pulling them at the BBQ on the 1st of April. 

Keith proposed buying an “Owl” device for our meetings: to help audio for those joining online. Meeting Owl 3 is $1049 (ouch!). Sunny & Justin have something similar we could use at future meetings.

For cutting wood in the fall, could we split the group between both sites [Nelson & Quealy] if there’s good turn out? Would save time. 

April Meeting? Tentatively have a BBQ for it. Shannon from WSSA will compile the ideas from the scholarship applicants about boosting memberships. We can go over this stuff at our April meeting.

We could update the Club’s logo? Maybe do a logo contest? WSSA had no luck trying this idea. Otherwise we can pay someone to do this. A new member works in this world, we could see if they’d be interested.

Apple Watches & Phones, be aware of the new “Crash Alert” system. Albany County SAR has had a few call outs for false alarms with these. Please make sure you’ve got the latest update (reduced sensitivity) and better yet turn it off while you’re out riding. If your watch triggers a crash alert SAR [all volunteers] has to deploy to check it out even if you’re fine.

Widow Maker slid sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 AM today (3/16/23). Expect an active weekend up there & be careful. 

Cameron proposed joining the SE WY OHV club. They have a bunch of members that run tracked SxS and ride the Range.

The Colorado Blizzards club does a lot in our area. They’re having a ride in the Range sometime in April. They have a website: http://www.coloradoblizzards.com/ But seem to be more active on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColoradoBlizzards 

They have more group rides than we do, you might consider joining them in addition to us. Perhaps we can coordinate joint events in the future? New officer position: event coordinator?

Business Matter:

We do not have a valid tax ID for the club. Paypal is now withholding all funds that come to us as memberships (donations are excepted) until we provide a valid tax ID number. We need to re-establish our non-profit status for this to be resolved. Currently, $2625 is being held and ultimately 24% of that will be sent to the IRS as backup withholding if we don’t address this.

At the federal level we need to be a non-profit organization to avoid having dues paid through online services like Paypal or Venmo charged as income and taxed as such. 

Sunny said she can work on this; how’s it going, and can we be of help? Hasn’t had a chance to dig into yet, Mitch is willing to help.

WSSA Update: Fun Days 2023 was in Alpine. 9 scholarships were awarded for the ‘22/’23 season. For next year, approximately $19,000 was raised for the fund at Fun Days auction, and $7,000 was raised for the ACCESS Wyoming program. 

$16558 generated by the raffle ticket sales, and half ($8292) went back to clubs that sold the tickets. 

Elections went through, and a new secretary was voted in. Sunny will work with them to ensure a smooth transition.

Next WSSA Meeting: Saratoga September 16th will be the Fall meeting for WSSA. 

Some folks at Fun Days spent the night on the mountain, and reiterated the importance of being prepared. InReach, radios, extra base layers, fire starters, etc. etc. 

Future WSSA Fun Days: 

2024 in Dubois first weekend in March and 2025 in Rock Springs.

Hill Climb Championship is coming up next weekend in Jackson. This is a big fundraiser for snowmobiling in Wyoming.

State Trails Update:

Job Opportunity: State Trails has been having a hard time getting down here with the roads. They’re looking for people that would be interested in working for State Trails Program in our region & based here. 

State Trails is restructuring: Jordy is going to handle the trails systems for the whole state (instead of just the West) while Josh moves to more paperwork/admin side. They’ve been having issues hiring and retention, and have restructured hierarchy in the Program to provide better opportunities for people to advance their careers within the Program. Please reach out to State Trails for specifics and/or if you’re interested in working with them.

Look for another snowmobile permit fee increase in 2025 due to the increased fuel costs, equipment, etc. 

State Trails has a pamphlet on their site for economic impact in Wyoming. I’ll try to locate it and share it. No luck, just a highly detailed report: https://wyoparks.wyo.gov/index.php/program-information-trails

Treasurer Update: Were donations made to ACSSAR and Carbon County SAR? Yes. After those payments and other expenses (WSSA ACCESS Wyoming & scholarship donations, and WSSA membership fees for our members), we have $9953.74 in checking, and we’ve got $2625 held in PayPal jail. 

Parking Update: Cameron filmed on his drive up during a “slow” weekend to illustrate how many people are on the mountain. Josh has had counters up on the mtn this season to get user numbers. This is good data for parking update support.

State Trails reinforced what our USFS Liaison officer gave us for a parking lot update in February. Things are looking good on this front but continued support of the parking lot improvements directed at the USFS would be a good move.

Grooming Update: Huts will be going out April 3rd. Grooming ends April 1st. Straight from State Trails. 

Next Meeting: April 20th at 6:00 PM. 

Topics: 

The WSSA scholarship topic was something along the lines of “how to get more young riders involved with clubs to advocate for snowmobiling”. Shannon (WSSA) summarizes the submitted essays as a sort of free research. We’ll talk about those ideas. 

We need to decide when to hold elections.

Touch base on non-profit status.

Snowy Range Snowmobile Club

6:00 PM at 3C Guiding shop

Membership Update: 

72 total members as of 2/21/23. 28 single memberships, 26 families, 8 associate businesses, 10 premium businesses. 

Beacon Check Stations:

All beacon check signs are in. Let us know if you notice any of them not working or needing attention. 

The Lake Marie beacon checkpoint needs raised up after these heavier storms. The snow level is rising up on it, will be buried if not addressed.

Safety shelters:

State Trails moved the Quealy safety shelter to try to level it out and raise it as the snowpack gets deeper. Keep stocking with firewood if you drop by. Shoot us a message if they need fire starter or matches.

Does anyone know how we’re doing on fire starter at Nelson Safety Shelter? Zach dropped a bunch of stuff off there after the previous club meeting (thanks!).

Business Matter:

We do not have a valid tax ID for the club. Paypal is now withholding 24% of all funds that come to us as income tax backup withholding. We need to re-establish our non-profit status for this to be resolved. Currently, $300 is being held and will ultimately be sent to the IRS.

At the federal level we need to be a non-profit organization to avoid having dues paid through online services like Paypal or Venmo sent in as income tax. 

Sunny said she can work on this.

Spring BBQ: Lake Marie BBQ on April 1st, 2023. Come out, eat food and ride sleds. Planning this will ensure it DUMPS snow!

WSSA Update: 

-Fun days is coming up! First weekend in March.

-Can join most clubs in the state through the new WSSA website.

-They’re working on a change to the ROP’s & Bylaws to allow people to join multiple clubs in the state with only paying the WSSA fee once.

-Everyone that’s a paid/current member, let us know if you’re not receiving the WSSA Wrangler in the mail. 

-Scholarship fund with WSSA, what should we donate? 75% goes to scholarship, 25% goes to the ACCESS Program. Last year we donated $1000. 

-WSSA website has links to State Trails maps. 

Treasurer Update: 

$10450.23 in checking. 

$500 each to be donated to Albany County SAR and Carbon County SAR.

We should be mindful of the costs associated with another safety shelter on the Range and keep some funds reserved.

USFS Liaison Update: 

State Trails is grooming 1000 miles total per week in the Snowies. Actively working with the Brush Creek Ranger District to get a permanent safety shelter at Quealy and then open up the existing mobile shelter to move elsewhere on the mountain (Lake Marie, possibly). 

All the “ologists” at USFS are staffed, so USFS can move forward on the parking lot evaluation. There’s a gravel pit with an active permit in the proposed lot location through summer 2023. Once that’s wrapped up, can move forward. The trail to link the new lot will be planned in cooperation with the SE WY Outdoor Recreation Collaborative.Proximity to Little Laramie trail system is considered. The Snowmobile lot going in, may motivate the plowing of the Little Laramie trailhead lot, as the plan is to have the new lot be only for OSV users. Currently, non motorized recreationists are parking along the highway across from the Little Laramie lot, not much room there. State Trails may be willing to get that plowed, to keep access available to all & keep non-sledders in their own parking area to minimize potential for user conflicts.

USFS & UWyo are doing some parking surveys on both sides of the Range to get area use numbers. So if you see some college kids at Greenrock taking notes feel free to chat with them. 

The lower lot across the street from the USFS visitor center on WY-130 is still being considered. This would be a great thing for Centennial businesses as people could sled right into town. The SE WY Outdoor Recreation Collaborative will have input on this. There are some concerns about snow cover in this area.

Assorted:

There’s a guy in Centennial that is continuing to film people as they drive through town. While this is odd, please remember to drive safely through town and obey the speed limit. Occasionally WY Highway Patrol will have a speed trap setup. 

Discussions between our club members and riders on the mountain indicated there’s positive feedback about an additional safety shelter and an actual parking lot. Some of these people follow us on Facebook, but had no idea there was an actual snowmobile Club with dues to pay that is working to make those things happen. Cameron will work on a quick PSA for our Facebook audience to clarify the situation.

SRSC coozie’s could be some good marketing. Can send them to members and hand them out at Snow Shows (Denver, Hay Days). They’re less than $1 each if we order over 100 at a time. Mitch will send Cory our logo and Cory will work on this.